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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/16657-8.txt b/16657-8.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..f299ebc --- /dev/null +++ b/16657-8.txt @@ -0,0 +1,8428 @@ +Project Gutenberg's The Book of Missionary Heroes, by Basil Mathews + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: The Book of Missionary Heroes + +Author: Basil Mathews + +Release Date: September 5, 2005 [EBook #16657] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE BOOK OF MISSIONARY HEROES *** + + + + +Produced by Janet Blenkinship and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net + + + + + +[Transcriber's note: Some Footnotes in this text contain special +characters, including a, e, and o with superior macron, represented by +[=a], [=e], and [=o], and a and u with superior breve, represented by +[)a] and [)u], to indicate pronunciation of native-language words.] + + + + +THE BOOK OF MISSIONARY HEROES + +BY + +BASIL MATHEWS, M.A. + +_Author of "The Argonauts of Faith," +"The Riddle of Nearer Asia," +etc._ + + +NEW YORK + +GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY + +_Copyright, 1922,_ + +_By George H. Doran Company_ + + + +PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA + + + + +CONTENTS + + PAGE + +PROLOGUE THE RELAY RACE 9 + +BOOK I: THE PIONEERS + + CHAPTER + I THE HERO OF THE LONG TRAIL (_St. Paul_) 19 + II THE MEN ON THE SHINGLE BEACH (_Wilfrid of Sussex_) 30 + III THE KNIGHT OF A NEW CRUSADE (_Raymond Lull_) 36 + IV FRANCIS COEUR-DE-LION (_St. Francis of Assisi_) 47 + +BOOK II: THE ISLAND ADVENTURERS + + V THE ADVENTUROUS SHIP (_The Duff_) 65 + VI THE ISLAND BEACON FIRES (_Papeiha_) 72 + VII THE DAYBREAK CALL (_John Williams_) 80 + VIII KAPIOLANI, THE HEROINE OF HAWAII (_Kapiolani_) 86 + IX THE CANOE OF ADVENTURE (_Elikana_) 92 + X THE ARROWS OF SANTA CRUZ (_Patteson_) 103 + XI FIVE KNOTS IN A PALM LEAF (_Patteson_) 108 + XII THE BOY OF THE ADVENTUROUS HEART (_Chalmers_) 113 + XIII THE SCOUT OF PAPUA (_Chalmers_) 118 + XIV A SOUTH SEA SAMARITAN (_Ruatoka_) 126 + +BOOK III: THE PATHFINDERS OF AFRICA + + XV THE MAN WHO WOULD GO ON (_Livingstone_) 131 + XVI A BLACK PRINCE OF AFRICA (_Khama_) 136 + XVII THE KNIGHT OF THE SLAVE GIRLS (_George Grenfell_) 150 + XVIII "A MAN WHO CAN TURN HIS HAND TO ANYTHING" (_Mackay_) 158 + XIX THE ROADMAKER (_Mackay_) 164 + XX FIGHTING THE SLAVE TRADE (_Mackay_) 172 + XXI THE BLACK APOSTLE OF THE LONELY LAKE (_Shomolakae_) 186 + XXII THE WOMAN WHO CONQUERED CANNIBALS (_Mary Slessor_) 196 + +BOOK IV: HEROINES AND HEROES OF PLATEAU AND DESERT + + XXIII SONS OF THE DESERT (_Abdallah and Sabat_) 213 + XXIV A RACE AGAINST TIME (_Henry Martyn_) 224 + XXV THE MOSES OF THE ASSYRIANS (_Dr. Shedd_) 236 + XXVI AN AMERICAN NURSE IN THE GREAT WAR (_E.D. Cushman_) 249 + XXVII ON THE DESERT CAMEL TRAIL (_Archibald Forder_) 260 + XXVIII THE FRIEND OF THE ARAB (_Archibald Forder_) 271 + + + + +THE BOOK OF MISSIONARY HEROES + + + + +PROLOGUE + +THE RELAY-RACE + + +The shining blue waters of two wonderful gulfs were busy with fishing +boats and little ships. The vessels came under their square sails and +were driven by galley-slaves with great oars. + +A Greek boy standing, two thousand years ago, on the wonderful +mountain of the Acro-Corinth that leaps suddenly from the plain above +Corinth to a pinnacle over a thousand feet high, could see the boats +come sailing from the east, where they hailed from the Piræus and +Ephesus and the marble islands of the Ægean Sea. Turning round he +could watch them also coming from the West up the Gulf of Corinth +from the harbours of the Gulf and even from the Adriatic Sea and +Brundusium. + +In between the two gulfs lay the Isthmus of Corinth to which the men +on the ships were sailing and rowing. + +The people were all in holiday dress for the great athletic sports +were to be held on that day and the next,--the sports that drew, in +those ancient days, over thirty thousand Greeks from all the country +round; from the towns on the shores of the two gulfs and from the +mountain-lands of Greece,--from Parnassus and Helicon and Delphi, +from Athens and the villages on the slopes of Hymettus and even from +Sparta. + +These sports, which were some of the finest ever held in the whole +world, were called--because they were held on this isthmus--the +Isthmian Games. + +The athletes wrestled. They boxed with iron-studded leather +straps over their knuckles. They fought lions brought across the +Mediterranean (the Great Sea as they called it) from Africa, and +tigers carried up the Khyber Pass across Persia from India. They flung +spears, threw quoits and ran foot-races. Amid the wild cheering of +thirty thousand throats the charioteers drove their frenzied horses, +lathered with foam, around the roaring stadium. + +One of the most beautiful of these races has a strange hold on the +imagination. It was a relay-race. This is how it was run. + +Men bearing torches stood in a line at the starting point. Each man +belonged to a separate team. Away in the distance stood another row of +men waiting. Each of these was the comrade of one of those men at the +starting point. Farther on still, out of sight, stood another row and +then another and another. + +At the word "Go" the men at the starting point leapt forward, their +torches burning. They ran at top speed towards the waiting men and +then gasping for breath, each passed his torch to his comrade in the +next row. He, in turn, seizing the flaming torch, leapt forward and +dashed along the course toward the next relay, who again raced on and +on till at last one man dashed past the winning post with his torch +burning ahead of all the others, amid the applauding cheers of the +multitude. + +The Greeks, who were very fond of this race, coined a proverbial +phrase from it. Translated it runs: + +"Let the torch-bearers hand on the flame to the others" or "Let those +who have the light pass it on." + + * * * * * + +That relay-race of torch-bearers is a living picture of the wonderful +relay-race of heroes who, right through the centuries, have, with +dauntless courage and a scorn of danger and difficulty, passed through +thrilling adventures in order to carry the Light across the continents +and oceans of the world. + +The torch-bearers! The long race of those who have borne, and still +carry the torches, passing them on from hand to hand, runs before us. +A little ship puts out from Seleucia, bearing a man who had caught +the fire in a blinding blaze of light on the road to Damascus. Paul +crosses the sea and then threads his way through the cities of Cyprus +and Asia Minor, passes over the blue Ægean to answer the call from +Macedonia. We see the light quicken, flicker and glow to a steady +blaze in centre after centre of life, till at last the torch-bearer +reaches his goal in Rome. + + "Yes, without cheer of sister or of daughter, + Yes, without stay of father or of son, + Lone on the land and homeless on the water + Pass I in patience till the work be done." + +Centuries pass and men of another age, taking the light that Paul had +brought, carry the torch over Apennine and Alp, through dense forests +where wild beasts and wilder savages roam, till they cross the North +Sea and the light reaches the fair-haired Angles of Britain, on whose +name Augustine had exercised his punning humour, when he said, "Not +Angles, but Angels." From North and South, through Columba and Aidan, +Wilfred of Sussex and Bertha of Kent, the light came to Britain. + +"Is not our life," said the aged seer to the Mercian heathen king as +the Missionary waited for permission to lead them to Christ, "like a +sparrow that flies from the darkness through the open window into this +hall and flutters about in the torchlight for a few moments to fly out +again into the darkness of the night. Even so we know not whence our +life comes nor whither it goes. This man can tell us. Shall we not +receive his teaching?" So the English, through these torch-bearers, +come into the light. + +The centuries pass by and in 1620 the little _Mayflower_, bearing +Christian descendants of those heathen Angles--new torch-bearers, +struggles through frightful tempests to plant on the American +Continent the New England that was indeed to become the forerunner of +a New World.[1] + +A century and a half passes and down the estuary of the Thames creeps +another sailing ship. + +The Government officer shouts his challenge: + +"What ship is that and what is her cargo?" + +"The _Duff_," rings back the answer, "under Captain Wilson, bearing +Missionaries to the South Sea." + +The puzzled official has never heard of such beings! But the little +ship passes on and after adventures and tempests in many seas at last +reaches the far Pacific. There the torch-bearers pass from island +to island and the light flames like a beacon fire across many a blue +lagoon and coral reef. + +One after another the great heroes sail out across strange seas and +penetrate hidden continents each with a torch in his hand. + +Livingstone, the lion-hearted pathfinder in Africa, goes out as the +fearless explorer, the dauntless and resourceful missionary, faced by +poisoned arrows and the guns of Arabs and marched with only his black +companions for thousands of miles through marsh and forest, over +mountain pass and across river swamps, in loneliness and hunger, often +with bleeding feet, on and on to the little hut in old Chitambo's +village in Ilala, where he crossed the river. Livingstone is the +Coeur-de-Lion of our Great Crusade. + +John Williams, who, in his own words, could "never be content with +the limits of a single reef," built with his own hands and almost +without any tools on a cannibal island the wonderful little ship _The +Messenger of Peace_ in which he sailed many thousands of miles from +island to island across the Pacific Ocean. + +These are only two examples of the men whose adventures are more +thrilling than those of our story books and yet are absolutely true, +and we find them in every country and in each of the centuries. + +So--as we look across the ages we + + "See the race of hero-spirits + Pass the torch from hand to hand." + +In this book the stories of a few of them are told as yarns to boys +and girls round a camp-fire. Every one of the tales is historically +true, and is accurate in detail. + +In that ancient Greek relay-race the prize to each winner was simply a +wreath of leaves cut by a priest with a golden knife from trees in the +sacred grove near the Sea,--the grove where the Temple of Neptune, the +god of the Ocean, stood. It was just a crown of wild olive that would +wither away. Yet no man would have changed it for its weight in gold. + +For when the proud winner in the race went back to his little city, +set among the hills, with his already withering wreath, all the people +would come and hail him a victor and wave ribbons in the air. A great +sculptor would carve a statue of him in imperishable marble and it +would be set up in the city. And on the head of the statue of the +young athlete was carved a wreath. + +In the great relay-race of the world many athletes--men and +women--have won great fame by the speed and skill and daring with +which they carried forward the torch and, themselves dropping in their +tracks, have passed the flame on to the next runner; Paul, Francis, +Penn, Livingstone, Mackay, Florence Nightingale, and a host of others. +And many who have run just as bravely and swiftly have won no fame +at all though their work was just as great. But the fame or the +forgetting really does not matter. The fact is that the race is still +running; _it has not yet been won_. Whose team will win? That is what +matters. + +The world is the stadium. Teams of evil run rapidly and teams of good +too. + +The great heroes and heroines whose story is told in this book have +run across the centuries over the world to us. Some of them are alive +to-day, as heroic as those who have gone. But all of them say the same +thing to us of the new world who are coming after them: + + "Take the torch." + +The greatest of them all, when he came to the very end of his days, as +he fell and passed on the Torch to others, said: + + "I have run my course." + +But to us who are coming on as Torch-bearers after him he spoke in +urgent words--written to the people at Corinth where the Isthmian +races were run: + + "Do you not know that they which run in a race all run, but one wins + the prize? + So run, that ye may be victors." + +FOOTNOTES: + +[Footnote 1: See "The Argonauts of Faith" by Basil Mathews. (Doran.)] + + + + +Book One: THE PIONEERS + + + + +CHAPTER I + +THE HERO OF THE LONG TRAIL + +_St. Paul_ + +(Dates, b. A.D. 6, d. A.D. 67[2]) + + +_The Three Comrades._ + +The purple shadows of three men moved ahead of them on the tawny +stones of the Roman road on the high plateau of Asia Minor one bright, +fresh morning.[3] They had just come out under the arched gateway +through the thick walls of the Roman city of Antioch-in-Pisidia. The +great aqueduct of stone that brought the water to the city from the +mountains on their right[4] looked like a string of giant camels +turned to stone. + +Of the three men, one was little more than a boy. He had the oval face +of his Greek father and the glossy dark hair of his Jewish mother. +The older men, whose long tunics were caught up under their girdles +to give their legs free play in walking, were brown, grizzled, sturdy +travellers. They had walked a hundred leagues together from the +hot plains of Syria, through the snow-swept passes of the Taurus +mountains, and over the sun-scorched levels of the high plateau.[5] +Their muscles were as tireless as whipcord. Their courage had not +quailed before robber or blizzard, the night yells of the hyena or the +stones of angry mobs. + +For the youth this was his first adventure out into the glorious, +unknown world. He was on the open road with the glow of the sun on his +cheek and the sting of the breeze in his face; a strong staff in his +hand; with his wallet stuffed with food--cheese, olives, and some +flat slabs of bread; and by his side his own great hero, Paul. Their +sandals rang on the stone pavement of the road which ran straight as +a strung bowline from the city, Antioch-in-Pisidia, away to the west. +The boy carried over his shoulder the cloak of Paul, and carried that +cloak as though it had been the royal purple garment of the Roman +Emperor himself instead of the worn, faded, travel-stained cloak of a +wandering tent-maker. + +The two older men, whose names were Paul the Tarsian and Silas, had +trudged six hundred miles. Their younger companion, whose name was +"Fear God," or Timothy as we say, with his Greek fondness for perfect +athletic fitness of the body, proudly felt the taut, wiry muscles +working under his skin. + +On they walked for day after day, from dawn when the sun rose behind +them to the hour when the sun glowed over the hills in their faces. +They turned northwest and at last dropped down from the highlands of +this plateau of Asia Minor, through a long broad valley, until they +looked down across the Plain of Troy to the bluest sea in the world. + +Timothy's eyes opened with astonishment as he looked down on such a +city as he had never seen--the great Roman seaport of Troy. The marble +Stadium, where the chariots raced and the gladiators fought, gleamed +in the afternoon light. + +The three companions could not stop long to gaze. They swung easily +down the hill-sides and across the plain into Troy, where they took +lodgings. + +They had not been in Troy long when they met a doctor named Luke. We +do not know whether one of them was ill and the doctor helped him; we +do not know whether Doctor Luke (who was a Greek) worshipped, when +he met them, Æsculapius, the god of healing of the Greek people. The +doctor did not live in Troy, but was himself a visitor. + +"I live across the sea," Luke told his three friends--Paul, Silas and +Timothy--stretching his hand out towards the north. "I live," he would +say proudly, "in the greatest city of all Macedonia--Philippi. It is +called after the great ruler Philip of Macedonia." + +Then Paul in his turn would be sure to tell Doctor Luke what it was +that had brought him across a thousand miles of plain and mountain +pass, hill and valley, to Troy. This is how he would tell the story in +such words as he used again and again: + +"I used to think," he said, "that I ought to do many things to oppose +the name of Jesus of Nazareth. I had many of His disciples put into +prison and even voted for their being put to death. I became so +exceedingly mad against them that I even pursued them to foreign +cities. + +"Then as I was journeying[6] to Damascus, with the authority of the +chief priests themselves, at mid-day I saw on the way a light from the +sky, brighter than the blaze of the sun, shining round about me and my +companions. And, as we were all fallen on to the road, I heard a voice +saying to me: + +"'Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me? It is hard for you to kick +against the goad.' + +"And I said, 'Who are you, Lord?' + +"The answer came: 'I am Jesus, whom you persecute.'" + +Then Paul went on: + +"I was not disobedient to the heavenly vision; but I told those in +Damascus and in Jerusalem and in all Judæa, aye! and the foreign +nations also, that they should repent and turn to God. + +"Later on," said Paul, "I fell into a trance, and Jesus came again +to me and said, 'Go, I will send you afar to the Nations.' That (Paul +would say to Luke) is why I walk among perils in the city; in perils +in the wilderness; in perils in the sea; in labour and work; in hunger +and thirst and cold, to tell people everywhere of the love of God +shown in Jesus Christ."[7] + + +_The Call to Cross the Sea._ + +One night, after one of these talks, as Paul was asleep in Troy, he +seemed to see a figure standing by him. Surely it was the dream-figure +of Luke, the doctor from Macedonia, holding out his hands and pleading +with Paul, saying, "Come over into Macedonia and help us." + +Now neither Paul nor Silas nor Timothy had ever been across the sea +into the land that we now call Europe. But in the morning, when Paul +told his companions about the dream that he had had, they all agreed +that God had called them to go and deliver the good news of the +Kingdom to the people in Luke's city of Philippi and in the other +cities of Macedonia. + +So they went down into the busy harbour of Troy, where the singing +sailor-men were bumping bales of goods from the backs of camels into +the holds of the ships, and they took a passage in a little coasting +ship. She hove anchor and was rowed out through the entrance between +the ends of the granite piers of the harbour. The seamen hoisting the +sails, the little ship went gaily out into the Ægean Sea. + +All day they ran before the breeze and at night anchored under the lee +of an island. At dawn they sailed northward again with a good wind, +till they saw land. Behind the coast on high ground the columns of +a temple glowed in the sunlight. They ran into a spacious bay and +anchored in the harbour of a new city--Neapolis as it was called--the +port of Philippi. + +Landing from the little ship, Paul, Silas, Timothy and Luke climbed +from the harbour by a glen to the crest of the hill, and then on, for +three or four hours of hard walking, till their sandals rang on +the pavement under the marble arch of the gate through the wall of +Philippi. + +_Flogging and Prison._ + +As Paul and his friends walked about in the city they talked with +people; for instance, with a woman called Lydia, who also had come +across the sea from Asia Minor where she was born. She and her +children and slaves all became Christians. So the men and women of +Philippi soon began to talk about these strange teachers from the +East. One day Paul and Silas met a slave girl dressed in a flowing, +coloured tunic. She was a fortune-teller, who earned money for her +masters by looking at people and trying to see at a glance what they +were like so that she might tell their fortunes. The fortune-telling +girl saw Paul and Silas going along, and she stopped and called out +loud so that everyone who went by might hear: "These men are the +slaves of the Most High God. They tell you the way of Salvation." + +The people stood and gaped with astonishment, and still the girl +called out the same thing, until a crowd began to come round. Then +Paul turned round and with sternness in his voice spoke to the evil +spirit in the girl and said: "In the Name of Jesus Christ, I order you +out of her." + +From that day the girl lost her power to tell people's fortunes, so +that the money that used to come to her masters stopped flowing. They +were very angry and stirred up everybody to attack Paul and Silas. A +mob collected and searched through the streets until they found them. +Then they clutched hold of their arms and robes, shouting: "To the +prætors! To the prætors!" The prætors were great officials who sat in +marble chairs in the Forum, the central square of the city. + +The masters of the slave girl dragged Paul and Silas along. At +their heels came the shouting mob and when they came in front of the +prætors, the men cried out: + +"See these fellows! Jews as they are, they are upsetting everything in +the city. They tell people to take up customs that are against the Law +for us as Romans to accept." + +"Yes! Yes!" yelled the crowd. "Flog them! Flog them!" + +The prætors, without asking Paul or Silas a single question as to +whether this was true, or allowing them to make any defence, were +fussily eager to show their Roman patriotism. Standing up they gave +their orders: + +"Strip them, flog them." + +The slaves of the prætors seized Paul and Silas and took their robes +from their backs. They were tied by their hands to the whipping-post. +The crowd gathered round to see the foreigners thrashed. + +The lictors--that is the soldier-servants of the prætors--untied their +bundles of rods. Then each lictor brought down his rod with cruel +strokes on Paul and Silas. The rods cut into the flesh and the blood +flowed down. + +Then their robes were thrown over their shoulders, and the two men, +with their tortured backs bleeding, were led into the black darkness +of the cell of the city prison; shackles were snapped on to their +arms, and their feet were clapped into stocks. Their bodies ached; the +other prisoners groaned and cursed; the filthy place stank; sleep was +impossible. + +But Paul and Silas did not groan. They sang the songs of their own +people, such as the verses that Paul had learned--as all Jewish +children did--when he was a boy at school. For instance-- + + God is our refuge and strength, + A very present help in trouble. + Therefore will we not fear, though the earth do change, + And though the mountains be moved in the heart of the seas; + Though the waters thereof roar and be troubled, + Though the mountains shake with the swelling thereof. + +As they sang there came a noise as though the mountains really were +shaking. The ground rocked; the walls shook; the chains were loosened +from the stones; the stocks were wrenched apart; their hands and feet +were free; the heavy doors crashed open. It was an earthquake. + +The jailor leapt to the entrance of the prison. The moonlight shone on +his sword as he was about to kill himself, thinking his prisoners had +escaped. + +"Do not harm yourself," shouted Paul. "We are all here." + +"Torches! Torches!" yelled the jailor. + +The jailor, like all the people of his land, believed that earthquakes +were sent by God. He thought he was lost. He turned to Paul and Silas +who, he knew, were teachers about God. + +"Sirs," he said, falling in fear on the ground, "what must I do to be +saved?" + +"Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ," they replied, "and you and your +household will all be saved." + +The jailor's wife then brought some oil and water, and the jailor +washed the poor wounded backs of Paul and Silas and rubbed healing oil +into them. + +The night was now passing and the sun began to rise. There was a tramp +of feet. The lictors who had thrashed Paul and Silas marched to +the door of the prison with an order to free them. The jailor was +delighted. + +"The prætors have sent to set you free," he said. "Come out then and +go in peace." + +He had the greatest surprise in his life when, instead of going, Paul +turned and said: + +"No, indeed! The prætors flogged us in public in the Forum and without +a trial--flogged Roman citizens! They threw us publicly into prison, +and now they are going to get rid of us secretly. Let the prætors come +here themselves and take us out!" + +Surely it was the boldest message ever sent to the powerful prætors. +But Paul knew what he was doing, and when the Roman prætors heard the +message they knew that he was right. They would be ruined if it were +reported at Rome that they had publicly flogged Roman citizens without +trial. + +Their prisoner, Paul, was now their judge. They climbed down from +their marble seats and walked on foot to the prison to plead with Paul +and Silas to leave the prison and not to tell against them what had +happened. + +"Will you go away from the city?" they asked. "We are afraid of other +riots." + +So Paul and Silas consented. But they went to the house where Lydia +lived--the home in which they had been staying in Philippi. + +Paul cheered up the other Christian folk--Lydia and Luke and +Timothy--and told them how the jailor and his wife and family had all +become Christians. + +"Keep the work of spreading the message here in Philippi going +strongly," said Paul to Luke and Timothy. "Be cheerfully prepared for +trouble." And then he and Silas, instead of going back to their own +land, went out together in the morning light of the early winter of +A.D. 50, away along the Western road over the hills to face perils +in other cities in order to carry the Good News to the people of the +West. + + +_The Trail of the Hero-Scout._ + +So Paul the dauntless pioneer set his brave face westwards, following +the long trail across the Roman Empire--the hero-scout of Christ. +Nothing could stop him--not scourgings nor stonings, prison nor +robbers, blizzards nor sand-storms. He went on and on till at last, as +a prisoner in Rome, he laid his head on the block of the executioner +and was slain. These are the brave words that we hear from him as he +came near to the end: + + +-----------------------------+ + | I HAVE FOUGHT A GOOD FIGHT; | + | I HAVE RUN MY COURSE; | + | I HAVE KEPT THE FAITH. | + +-----------------------------+ + +Long years afterward, men who were Christians in Rome carried the +story of the Kingdom of Jesus Christ across Europe to some savages in +the North Sea Islands--called Britons. Paul handed the torch from +the Near East to the people in Rome. They passed the torch on to the +people of Britain--and from Britain many years later men sailed to +build up the new great nation in America. So the torch has run from +East to West, from that day to this, and from those people of long ago +to us. But we owe this most of all to Paul, the first missionary, +who gave his life to bring the Good News from the lands of Syria and +Judæa, where our Lord Jesus Christ lived and died and rose again. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[Footnote 2: The dates are, of course, conjectural; but those given +are accepted by high authorities. Paul was about forty-four at the +time of this adventure.] + +[Footnote 3: The plateau on which Lystra, Derbe, Iconium, and +Antioch-in-Pisidia stood is from 3000 to 4000 feet above sea-level.] + +[Footnote 4: The aqueduct was standing there in 1914, when the author +was at Antioch-in-Pisidia (now called Yalowatch).] + +[Footnote 5: A Bible with maps attached will give the route from +Antioch in Syria, round the Gulf of Alexandretta, past Tarsus, up the +Cilician Gates to Derbe, Lystra, Iconium, and Antioch-in-Pisidia.] + +[Footnote 6: Compare Acts ix. I-8, xxvi. 12-20.] + +[Footnote 7: St. Paul's motive and message are developed more fully in +the Author's _Paul the Dauntless_.] + + + + +CHAPTER II + +THE MEN OF THE SHINGLE BEACH + +_Wilfrid of Sussex_ + +(Date, born A.D. 634. Incidents A.D. 666 and 681[8]) + + +Twelve hundred and fifty years ago a man named Wilfrid sailed along +the south coast of a great island in the North Seas. With him in the +ship were a hundred and twenty companions. + +The voyage had started well, but now the captain looked anxious as he +peered out under his curved hand, looking first south and then north. +There was danger in both directions. + +The breeze from the south stiffened to a gale. The mast creaked and +strained as the gathering storm tore at the mainsail. The ship reeled +and pitched as the spiteful waves smote her high bow and swept hissing +and gurgling along the deck. She began to jib like a horse and refused +to obey her rudder. Wind and current were carrying her out of her +course. + +In spite of all the captain's sea-craft the ship was being driven +nearer to the dreaded, low, shingle beach of the island that stretched +along the northern edge of the sea. The captain did not fear the +coast itself, for it had no rocks. But the lines deepened on his +weather-scarred face as he saw, gathering on the shelving beach, the +wild, yellow-haired men of the island. + +The ship was being carried nearer and nearer to the coast. All on +board could now see the Men of the Shingle Beach waving their spears +and axes. + +The current and the wind swung the ship still closer to the shore, and +now--even above the whistle of the gale in the cordage--the crew heard +the wild whoop of the wreckers. These men on the beach were the sons +of pirates. But they were now cowards compared with their fathers. For +they no longer lived by the wild sea-rover's fight that had made +their fathers' blood leap with the joy of the battle. They lived by +a crueller craft. Waiting till some such vessel as this was swept +ashore, they would swoop down on it, harry and slay the men, carry the +women and children off for slaves, break up the ship and take the wood +and stores for fire and food. They were beach-combers. + +An extra swing of the tide, a great wave--and with a thud the ship was +aground, stuck fast on the yielding sands. With a wild yell, and with +their tawny manes streaming in the wind, the wreckers rushed down the +beach brandishing their spears. + +Wilfrid, striding to the side of the ship, raised his hand to show +that he wished to speak to the chief. But the island men rushed on +like an avalanche and started to storm the ship. Snatching up arms, +poles, rope-ends--whatever they could find--the men on board beat down +upon the heads of the savages as they climbed up the ship's slippery +side. One man after another sank wounded on the deck. The fight grew +more obstinate, but at last the men of the beach drew back up the +sands, baffled. + +The Men of the Shingle Beach might have given up the battle had not +a fierce priest of their god of war leapt on to a mound of sand, and, +lifting his naked arms to the skies, called on the god to destroy the +men in the ship. + +The savages were seized with a new frenzy and swept down the beach +again. Wilfrid had gathered his closest friends round him and was +quietly kneeling on the deck praying to his God for deliverance from +the enemy. The fight became desperate. Again the savages were driven +back up the beach. + +Once more they rallied and came swooping down on the ship. But a +pebble from the sling of a man on the ship struck the savage priest +on the forehead; he tottered and fell on the sand. This infuriated +the savages, yet it took the heart out of these men who had trusted in +their god of war. + +Meanwhile the tide had been creeping up; it swung in still further and +lifted the ship from the sand; the wind veered, the sails strained. +Slowly, but with gathering speed, the ship stood out to sea followed +by howls of rage from the men on the beach. + + * * * * * + +Some years passed by, yet Wilfrid in all his travels had never +forgotten the Men of the Beach. And, strangely enough, he wanted to go +back to them. + +At last the time came when he could do so. This time he did not visit +them by sea. After he had preached among the people in a distant +part of the same great island, Wilfrid with four faithful +companions--Eappa, Padda, Burghelm and Oiddi--walked down to the south +coast of the island. + +As he came to the tribe he found many of them gathered on the beach +as before. But the fierceness was gone. They tottered with weakness as +they walked. The very bones seemed ready to come through their skin. +They were starving with hunger and thirst from a long drought, when +no grain or food of any kind would grow. And now they were gathered on +the shore, and a long row of them linked hand in hand would rush down +the very beach upon which they had attacked Wilfrid, and would cast +themselves into the sea to get out of the awful agonies of their +hunger. + +"Are there not fish in the sea for food?" asked Wilfrid. + +"Yes, but we cannot catch them," they answered. + +Wilfrid showed the wondering Men of the Shingle Beach how to make +large nets and then launched out in the little boats that they owned, +and let the nets down. For hour after hour Wilfrid and his companions +fished, while the savages watched them from the beach with hungry eyes +as the silver-shining fish were drawn gleaming and struggling into the +boats. + +At last, as evening drew on, the nets were drawn in for the last time, +and Wilfrid came back to the beach with hundreds of fish in the boats. +With eager joy the Men of the Beach lit fires and cooked the fish. +Their hunger was stayed; the rain for which Wilfrid prayed came. They +were happy once more. + +Then Wilfrid gathered them all around him on the beach and said words +like these: + +"You men tried to kill me and my friends on this beach years ago, +trusting in your god of war. You _failed_. There is no god of war. +There is but one God, a God not of war, but of Love, Who sent His only +Son to tell about His love. That Son, Jesus Christ, Who fed the hungry +multitudes by the side of the sea with fish, sent me to you to show +love to you, feeding you with fish from the sea, and feeding you with +His love, which is the Bread of Life." + +The wondering savages, spear in hand, shook their matted hair and +could not take it in at once. Yet they and their boys and girls had +already learned to trust Wilfrid, and soon began to love the God of +Whom he spoke. + + * * * * * + +Now, those savages were the great, great, great grandfathers and +mothers of the English-speaking peoples of the world. The North Sea +Island was Britain; the beach was at Selsey near Chichester on the +South Coast. And the very fact that you and I are alive to-day, the +shelter of our homes, the fact that we can enjoy the wind on the heath +in camp, our books and sport and school, all these things come to us +through men like Wilfrid and St. Patrick, St. Columba and St. Ninian, +St. Augustine and others who in the days of long ago came to lift our +fathers from the wretched, quarrelsome life, and from the starving +helplessness of the Men of the Shingle Beach. + +The people of the North Sea Islands and of America and the rest of +the Christian world have these good things in their life because +there came to save our forefathers heroic missionaries like Wilfrid, +Columba, and Augustine. There are to-day men of the South Sea Islands, +who are even more helpless than our Saxon grandfathers. + +To get without giving is mean. To take the torch and not to pass it on +is to fail to play the game. We must hand on to the others the light +that has come to us. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[Footnote 8: The chief authority for the story of Wilfrid is Bede.] + + + + +CHAPTER III + +THE KNIGHT OF A NEW CRUSADE + +_Raymund Lull_ + +(Dates, b. 1234, d. 1315) + + +I + +A little old man, barefooted and bareheaded, and riding upon an ass, +went through the cities and towns and villages of Europe, in the +eleventh century, carrying--not a lance, but a crucifix. When he came +near a town the word ran like a forest fire, "It is Peter the Hermit." + +All the people rushed out. Their hearts burned as they heard him tell +how the tomb of Jesus Christ was in the hand of the Moslem Turk, of +how Christians going to worship at His Tomb in Jerusalem were thrown +into prison and scourged and slain. Knights sold lands and houses to +buy horses and lances. Peasants threw down the axe and the spade for +the pike and bow and arrows. Led by knights, on whose armour a red +Cross was emblazoned, the people poured out in their millions for the +first Crusade. It is said that in the spring of 1096 an "expeditionary +force" of six million people was heading toward Palestine. + +The Crusades were caused partly by the cruelty of the followers of +Mohammed, the Moslem Turks, who believed that they could earn entrance +into Paradise by slaying infidel Christians. The Moslems every day and +five times a day turn their faces to Mecca in Arabia, saying "There is +no God but God; Mohammed is the Prophet of God." Allah (they believe) +is wise and merciful to His own, but not holy, nor our Father, +nor loving and forgiving, nor desiring pure lives. On earth and in +Paradise women have no place save to serve men. + +The first Crusade ended in the capture of Jerusalem (July 15, 1099), +and Godfrey de Bouillon became King of Jerusalem. But Godfrey refused +to put a crown upon his head. For, he said, "I will not wear a crown +of gold in the city where Our Lord Jesus Christ wore a crown of +thorns." + + The fortunes of Christian and Moslem ebbed and flowed for nearly + two hundred years, during which time there were seven Crusades + ending at the fall of Acre into the hands of the Turks in 1291. + + The way of the sword had failed, though indeed the Crusades had + probably been the means of preventing all Europe from being + overrun by the Moslems. At the time when the last Crusade had + begun a man was planning a new kind of Crusade, different in + method but calling for just as much bravery as the old kind. + We are going to hear his story now. + + +II + +_The Young Knight's Vision_ + +In the far-off days of the last of the Crusades, a knight of Majorca, +in the Mediterranean Sea, stood on the shore of his island home gazing +over the water. Raymund Lull from the beach of Palma Bay, where he +had played as a boy, now looked out southward, where boats with their +tall, rakish, brown sails ran in from the Great Sea. + +The knight was dreaming of Africa which lay away to the south of his +island. He had heard many strange stories from the sailors about the +life in the harbours of that mysterious African seaboard; but he had +never once in his thirty-six years set eyes upon one of its ports. + +It was the year when Prince Edward of England, out on the mad, futile +adventure of the last Crusade, was felled by the poisoned dagger of an +assassin in Nazareth, and when Eleanor (we are told) drew the poison +from the wound with her own lips. Yet Raymund Lull, who was a knight +so skilled that he could flash his sword and set his lance in rest +with any of his peers, had not joined that Crusade. His brave father +carried the scars of a dozen battles against the Moors. Yet, when the +last Crusade swept down the Mediterranean, Lull stood aside; for he +was himself planning a new Crusade of a kind unlike any that had gone +before. + +He dreamed of a Crusade not to the Holy Land but to Africa, where the +Crescent of Mohammed ruled and where the Cross of Christ was never +seen save when an arrogant Moslem drew a cross in the sand of the +desert to spit upon it. It was the desire of Raymund Lull's life to +sail out into those perilous ports and to face the fierce Saracens who +thronged the cities. He longed for this as other knights panted to go +out to the Holy Land as Crusaders. He was rich enough to sail at any +time, for he was his own master. Why, then, did he not take one of the +swift craft that rocked in the bay, and sail? + +It was because he had not yet forged a sharp enough weapon for his new +Crusade. His deep resolve was that at all costs he would "Be Prepared" +for every counter-stroke of the Saracen whose tongue was as swift and +sharp as his scimitar. + +What powers do we think a man should have in order to convince +fanatical Moslems, who knew their own sacred book--the Koran--of the +truth of Christianity? Control of his own temper, courage, patience, +knowledge of the Moslem religion and of the Bible, suggest themselves. + + +III + +_The Preparation of Temper_ + +So Lull turned his back on the beach and on Africa, and plunged under +the heavy shadows of the arched gateway through the city wall up the +narrow streets of Palma. A servant opened the heavy, studded door of +his father's mansion--the house where Lull himself was born. + +He hastened in and, calling to his Saracen slave, strode to his own +room. The dark-faced Moor obediently came, bowed before his young +master, and laid out on the table manuscripts that were covered with +mysterious writing such as few people in Europe could read. + +Lull was learning Arabic from this sullen Saracen slave. He was +studying the Koran--the Bible of the Mohammedans--so that he might be +able to strive with the Saracens on their own ground. For Lull knew +that he must be master of all the knowledge of the Moslem if he was +to win his battles; just as a knight in the fighting Crusades must +be swift and sure with his sword. And this is how Lull spoke of the +Crusade on which he was to set out. + +"I see many knights," he said, "going to the Holy Land beyond the seas +and thinking that they can acquire it by force of arms; but in the end +all are destroyed before they attain that which they think to have. +Whence it seems to me that the conquest of the Holy Land ought not +to be attempted except in the way in which Christ and His Apostles +achieved it, namely, by love and prayers, and the pouring out of tears +and blood." + +Suddenly, as he and the Saracen slave argued together, the Moor +blurted out passionately a horrible blasphemy against the name of +Jesus. Lull's blood was up. He leapt to his feet, leaned forward, and +caught the Moor a swinging blow on the face with his hand. In a fury +the Saracen snatched a dagger from the folds of his robe and, leaping +at Lull, drove it into his side. Raymund fell with a cry. Friends +rushed in. The Saracen was seized and hurried away to a prison-cell, +where he slew himself. + +Lull, as he lay day after day waiting for his wound to heal and +remembering his wild blow at the Saracen, realised that, although he +had learned Arabic, he had not yet learned the first lesson of his own +new way of Crusading--to be master of himself. + + +IV + +_The Preparation of Courage_ + +So Raymund Lull (at home and in Rome and Paris) set himself afresh to +his task of preparing. At last he felt that he was ready. From Paris +he rode south-east through forest and across plain, over mountain and +pass, till the gorgeous palaces and the thousand masts of Genoa came +in sight. + +He went down to the harbour and found a ship that was sailing across +the Mediterranean to Africa. He booked his passage and sent his goods +with all his precious manuscripts aboard. The day for sailing came. +His friends came to cheer him. But Lull sat in his room trembling. + +As he covered his eyes with his hands in shame, he saw the fiery, +persecuting Saracens of Tunis, whom he was sailing to meet. He knew +they were glowing with pride because of their triumphs over the +Crusaders in Palestine. He knew they were blazing with anger because +their brother Moors had been slaughtered and tortured in Spain. He saw +ahead of him the rack, the thumb-screw, and the boot; the long years +in a slimy dungeon--at the best the executioner's scimitar. He simply +dared not go. + +The books were brought ashore again. The ship sailed without Lull. + +"The ship has gone," said a friend to Lull. He quivered under a +torture of shame greater than the agony of the rack. He was wrung with +bitter shame that he who had for all these years prepared for this +Crusade should now have shown the white feather. He was, indeed, a +craven knight of Christ. + +His agony of spirit threw him into a high fever that kept him in his +bed. + +Soon after he heard that another ship was sailing for Africa. + +In spite of the protestations of his friends Lull insisted that they +should carry him to the ship. They did so; but as the hour of sailing +drew on his friends were sure that he was so weak that he would die +on the sea before he could reach Africa. So--this time in spite of all +his pleading--they carried him ashore again. But he could not rest and +his agony of mind made his fever worse. + +Soon, however, a third ship was making ready to sail. This time Lull +was carried on board and refused to return. + +The ship cast off and threaded its way through the shipping of the +harbour out into the open sea. + +"From this moment," said Lull, "I was a new man. All fever left me +almost before we were out of sight of land." + + +V + +_The First Battle_ + +Passing Corsica and Sardinia, the ship slipped southward till at last +she made the yellow coast of Africa, broken by the glorious Gulf +of Tunis. She dropped sail as she ran alongside the busy wharves of +Goletta. Lull was soon gliding in a boat through the short ancient +canal to Tunis, the mighty city which was head of all the Western +Mohammedan world. + +He landed and found the place beside the great mosque where the +grey-bearded scholars bowed over their Korans and spoke to one another +about the law of Mohammed. + +They looked at him with amazement as he boldly came up to them and +said, "I have come to talk with you about Christ and His Way of Life, +and Mohammed and his teaching. If you can prove to me that Mohammed is +indeed _the_ Prophet, I will myself become a follower of him." + +The Moslems, sure of their case, called together their wisest men and +together they declaimed to Lull what he already knew very well--the +watchword that rang out from minaret to minaret across the roofs of +the vast city as the first flush of dawn came up from the East across +the Gulf. "There is no God but God; Mohammed is the Prophet of God." + +"Yes," he replied, "the Allah of Mohammed is one and is great, but He +does not love as does the Father of Jesus Christ. He is wise, but He +does not do good to men like our God who so loved the world that He +gave His Son Jesus Christ." + +To and fro the argument swung till, after many days, to their dismay +and amazement the Moslems saw some of their number waver and at last +actually beginning to go over to the side of Lull. To forsake the +Faith of Mohammed is--by their own law--to be worthy of death. A +Moslem leader hurried to the Sultan of Tunis. + +"See," he said, "this learned teacher, Lull, is declaring the errors +of the Faith. He is dangerous. Let us take him and put him to death." + +The Sultan gave the word of command. A body of soldiers went out, +seized Lull, dragged him through the streets, and threw him into a +dark dungeon to wait the death sentence. + +But another Moslem who had been deeply touched by Lull's teaching +craved audience with the Sultan. + +"See," he said, "this learned man Lull--if he were a Moslem--would +be held in high honour, being so brave and fearless in defence of his +Faith. Do not slay him. Banish him from Tunis." + +So when Lull in his dungeon saw the door flung open and waited to be +taken to his death he found to his surprise that he was led from the +dungeon through the streets of Tunis, taken along the canal, thrust +into the hold of a ship, and told that he must go in that ship to +Genoa and never return. But the man who had before been afraid to sail +from Genoa to Tunis, now escaped unseen from the ship that would have +taken him back to safety in order to risk his life once more. He said +to himself the motto he had written: + + +--------------------------------------+ + | "HE WHO LOVES NOT, LIVES NOT! HE WHO | + | LIVES BY THE LIFE CANNOT DIE." | + +--------------------------------------+ + +He was not afraid now even of martyrdom. He hid among the wharves +and gathered his converts about him to teach them more and more about +Christ. + + +VI + +_The Last Fight_ + +At last, however, seeing that he could do little in hiding, Lull took +ship to Naples. After many adventures during a number of years, in a +score of cities and on the seas, the now white-haired Lull sailed into +the curved bay of Bugia farther westward along the African coast. In +the bay behind the frowning walls the city with its glittering mosques +climbed the hill. Behind rose two glorious mountains crowned with the +dark green of the cedar. And, far off, like giant Moors wearing white +turbans, rose the distant mountain peaks crowned with snow. + +Lull passed quietly through the arch of the city gateway which he knew +so well, for among other adventures he had once been imprisoned in +this very city. He climbed the steep street and found a friend who hid +him away. There for a year Lull taught in secret till he felt that the +time had come for him to go out boldly and dare death itself. + +One day the people in the market-place of Bugia heard a voice ring out +that seemed to some of them strangely familiar. They hurried toward +the sound. There stood the old hero with arm uplifted declaring, in +the full blaze of the North African day, the Love of God shown in +Jesus Christ His Son. + +The Saracens murmured. They could not answer his arguments. They cried +to him to stop, but his voice rose ever fuller and bolder. They rushed +on him, dragged him by the cloak out of the market-place, down the +streets, under the archway to a place beyond the city walls. There +they threw back their sleeves, took up great jagged stones and hurled +these grim messengers of hate at the Apostle of Love, till he sank +senseless to the ground.[9] + +It was word for word over again the story of Stephen; the speech, the +wild cries of the mob, the rush to the place beyond the city wall, the +stoning.[10] + +Did Lull accomplish anything? He was dead; but he had conquered. He +had conquered his old self. For the Lull who had, in a fit of temper, +smitten his Saracen slave now smiled on the men who stoned him; and +the Lull who had showed the white feather of fear at Genoa, now defied +death in the market-place of Bugia. And in that love and heroism, in +face of hate and death, he had shown men the only way to conquer +the scimitar of Mohammed, "the way in which Christ and His Apostles +achieved it, namely, by love and prayers, and the pouring out of tears +and blood." + +FOOTNOTES: + +[Footnote 9: June 30. 1315.] + +[Footnote 10: Acts vi. 8-vii. 60.] + + + + +CHAPTER IV + +FRANCIS COEUR-DE-LION + +(_St. Francis of Assisi_) A.D. 1181-1226 (Date of Incident, 1219) + + +I + +The dark blue sky of an Italian night was studded with sparkling stars +that seemed to be twinkling with laughter at the pranks of a lively +group of gay young fellows as they came out from a house half-way up +the steep street of the little city of Assisi. + +As they strayed together down the street they sang the love-songs of +their country and then a rich, strong voice rang out singing a song in +French. + +"That is Francis Bernardone," one neighbour would say to another, +nodding his head, for Francis could sing, not only in his native +Italian, but also in French. + +"He lives like a prince; yet he is but the son of a cloth +merchant,--rich though the merchant be." + +So the neighbours, we are told, were always grumbling about Francis, +the wild spendthrift. For young Francis dressed in silk and always in +the latest fashion; he threw his pocket-money about with a free hand. +He loved beautiful things. He was very sensitive. He would ride a long +way round to avoid seeing the dreadful face of a poor leper, and would +hold his nose in his cloak as he passed the place where the lepers +lived. + +He was handsome in face, gallant in bearing, idle and careless; a +jolly companion, with beautiful courtly manners. His dark chestnut +hair curled over his smooth, rather small forehead. His black +twinkling eyes looked out under level brows; his nose was straight and +finely shaped. + +When he laughed he showed even, white, closely set teeth between +thin and sensitive lips. He wore a short, black beard. His arms were +shortish; his fingers long and sensitive. He was lightly built; his +skin was delicate. + +He was witty, and his voice when he spoke was powerful and sonorous, +yet sweet-toned and very clear. + +For him to be the son of a merchant seemed to the gossips of Assisi +all wrong--as though a grey goose had hatched out a gorgeous peacock. + +The song of the revellers passed down the street and died away. The +little city of Assisi slept in quietness on the slopes of the Apennine +Mountains under the dark clear sky. + +A few nights later, however, no song of any revellers was heard. +Francis Bernardone was very ill with a fever. For week after week his +mother nursed him; and each night hardly believed that her son would +live to see the light of the next morning. When at last the fever left +him, he was so feeble that for weeks he could not rise from his bed. +Gradually, however, he got better: as he did so the thing that he +desired most of all in the world was to see the lovely country around +Assisi;--the mountains, the Umbrian Plain beneath, the blue skies, the +dainty flowers. + +At last one day, with aching limbs and in great feebleness, he crept +out of doors. There were the great Apennine Mountains on the side of +which his city of Assisi was built. There were the grand rocky peaks +pointing to the intense blue sky. There was the steep street with the +houses built of stone of a strange, delicate pink colour, as though +the light of dawn were always on them. There were the dark green olive +trees, and the lovely tendrils of the vines. The gay Italian flowers +were blooming. + +Stretching away in the distance was one of the most beautiful +landscapes of the world; the broad Umbrian Plain with its browns and +greens melting in the distance into a bluish haze that softened the +lines of the distant hills. + +How he had looked forward to seeing it all, to being in the sunshine, +to feeling the breeze on his hot brow! But what--he wondered--had +happened to him? He looked at it all, but he felt no joy. It all +seemed dead and empty. He turned his back on it and crawled indoors +again, sad and sick at heart. He was sure that he would never feel +again "the wild joys of living." + +As Francis went back to his bed he began to think what he should do +with the rest of his life. He made up his mind not to waste it any +longer: but he did not see clearly what he should do with it. + +A short time after Francis begged a young nobleman of Assisi, who +was just starting to fight in a war, if he might go with him. The +nobleman--Walter of Brienne, agreed: so Francis bought splendid +trappings for his horse, and a shield, sword and spear. His armour and +his horse's harness were more splendid than even those of Walter. So +they went clattering together out of Assisi. + +But he had not gone thirty miles before he was smitten again by fever. +After sunset one evening he lay dreamily on his bed when he seemed to +hear a voice. + +"Francis," it asked, "what could benefit thee most, the master or the +servant, the rich man or the poor?" + +"The master and the rich man," answered Francis in surprise. + +"Why then," went on the voice, "dost thou leave God, Who is the Master +and rich, for man, who is the servant and poor?" + +"Then, Lord, what will Thou that I do?" asked Francis. + +"Return to thy native town, and it shall be shown thee there what thou +shall do," said the voice. + +He obediently rose and went back to Assisi. He tried to join again in +the old revels, but the joy was gone. He went quietly away to a cave +on the mountain side and there he lay--as young Mahomet had done, you +remember, five centuries before, to wonder what he was to do. + +Then a vision came to him. All at once like a flash his mind was +clear, and his soul was full of joy. He saw the love of Jesus +Christ--Who had lived and suffered and died for love of him and of +all men;--that love was to rule his own life! He had found his +Captain--the Master of his life, the Lord of his service,--Christ. + +Yet even now he hardly knew what to do. He went home and told his +friends as well as he could of the change in his heart. + +Some smiled rather pityingly and went away saying to one another: +"Poor fellow; a little mad, you can see; very sad for his parents!" + +Others simply laughed and mocked. + +One day, very lonely and sad at heart, he clambered up the mountain +side to an old church just falling into ruin near which, in a cavern, +lived a priest. He went into the ruin and fell on his knees. + +"Francis," a voice in his soul seemed to say, "dost thou see my house +going to ruin. Buckle to and repair it." + +He dashed home, saddled his horse, loaded it with rich garments and +rode off to another town to sell the goods. He sold the horse too; +trudged back up the hill and gave the fat purse to the priest. + +"No," said the priest, "I dare not take it unless your father says I +may." + +But his father, who had got rumour of what was going on, came with a +band of friends to drag Francis home. Francis fled through the woods +to a secret cave, where he lay hidden till at last he made up his mind +to face all. He came out and walked straight towards home. Soon the +townsmen of Assisi caught sight of him. + +"A madman," they yelled, throwing stones and sticks at him. All the +boys of Assisi came out and hooted and threw pebbles. + +His father heard the riot and rushed out to join in the fun. Imagine +his horror when he found that it was his own son. He yelled with +rage, dashed at him and, clutching him by the robe, dragged him along, +beating and cursing him. When he got him home he locked him up. But +some days later Francis' mother let him out, when his father was +absent; and Francis climbed the hill to the Church. + +The bishop called in Francis and his father to his court to settle the +quarrel. + +"You must give back to your father all that you have," said he. + +"I will," replied Francis. + +He took off all his rich garments; and, clad only in a hair-vest, he +put the clothes and the purse of money at his father's feet. + +"Now," he cried, "I have but one father. Henceforth I can say in all +truth 'Our Father Who art in heaven.'" + +A peasant's cloak was given to Francis. He went thus, without home +or any money, a wanderer. He went to a monastery and slaved in the +kitchen. A friend gave him a tunic, some shoes, and a stick. He went +out wandering in Italy again. He loved everybody; he owned nothing; he +wanted everyone to know the love of Jesus as he knew and enjoyed that +love. + +There came to Francis many adventures. He was full of joy; he sang +even to the birds in the woods. Many men joined him as his disciples +in the way of obedience, of poverty, and of love. Men in Italy, in +Spain, in Germany and in Britain caught fire from the flame of his +simple love and careless courage. Never had Europe seen so clear a +vision of the love of Jesus. His followers were called the Lesser +Brothers (Friars Minor). + +All who can should read the story of Francis' life: as for us we are +here going simply to listen to what happened to him on a strange and +perilous adventure. + + +II + +About this time people all over Europe were agog with excitement about +the Crusades. Four Crusades had come and gone. Richard Coeur-de-Lion +was dead. But the passion for fighting against the Saracen was still +in the hearts of men. + +"The tomb of our Lord in Jerusalem is in the hands of the Saracen," +the cry went up over all Europe. "Followers of Jesus Christ are slain +by the scimitars of Islam. Let us go and wrest the Holy City from the +hands of the Saracen." + +There was also the danger to Europe itself. The Mohammedans ruled in +Spain as well as in North Africa, in Egypt and in the Holy Land. + +So rich men sold their lands to buy horses and armour and to fit +themselves and their foot soldiers for the fray. Poor men came armed +with pike and helmet and leather jerkin. The knights wore a blood-red +cross on their white tunics. In thousands upon thousands, with John +of Brienne as their Commander-in-Chief (the brother of that Walter of +Brienne with whom, you remember, Francis had started for the wars as +a knight), they sailed the Mediterranean to fight for the Cross in +Egypt. + +They attacked Egypt because the Sultan there ruled over Jerusalem and +they hoped by defeating him to free Jerusalem at the same time. + +As Francis saw the knights going off to the Crusades in shining armour +with the trappings of their horses all a-glitter and a-jingle, and as +he thought of the lands where the people worshipped--not the God and +Father of our Lord Jesus Christ--but the "Sultan in the Sky," the +Allah of Mahomet, his spirit caught fire within him. + +Francis had been a soldier and a knight only a few years before. He +could not but feel the stir of the Holy War in his veins,--the tingle +of the desire to be in it. He heard the stories of the daring of the +Crusaders; he heard of a great victory over the Saracens. + +Francis, indeed, wanted Jesus Christ to conquer men more than he +wanted anything on earth; but he knew that men are only conquered by +Jesus Christ if their hearts are changed by Him. + +"Even if the Saracens are put to the sword and overwhelmed, still they +are not saved," he said to himself. + +As he thought these things he felt sure that he heard them calling to +him (as the Man from Macedonia had called to St. Paul)--"Come over and +help us." St. Paul had brought the story of Jesus Christ to Europe; +and had suffered prison and scourging and at last death by the +executioner's sword in doing it; must not Francis be ready to take the +same message back again from Europe to the Near East and to suffer for +it? + +"I will go," he said, "but to save the Saracens, not to slay them." + +He was not going out to fight, yet he had in his heart a plan that +needed him to be braver and more full of resource than any warrior +in the armies of the Crusades. He was as much a Lion-hearted hero +as Richard Coeur-de-Lion himself, and was far wiser and indeed more +powerful. + +So he took a close friend, Brother Illuminato, with him and they +sailed away together over the seas. They sailed from Italy with Walter +of Brienne, with one of the Crusading contingents in many ships. +Southeast they voyaged over the blue waters of the Mediterranean Sea. + +Francis talked with the Crusaders on board; and much that they said +and did made him very sad. They squabbled with one another. +The knights were arrogant and sneered at the foot soldiers; the +men-at-arms did not trust the knights. They had the Cross on their +armour; but few of them had in their hearts the spirit of Jesus who +was nailed to the Cross. + +At last the long, yellow coast-line of Egypt was sighted. Behind it +lay the minarets and white roofs of a city. They were come to the +eastern mouth of the Nile, on which stood the proud city of Damietta. +The hot rays of the sun smote down upon the army of the Crusaders as +they landed. The sky and the sea were of an intense blue; the sand and +the sun glared at one another. + +Francis would just be able to hear at dawn the cry of the muezzin from +the minarets of Damietta, "Come to prayer: there is no God but Allah +and Mahomet is his prophet. Come to prayer. Prayer is better than +sleep." + +John of Brienne began to muster his men in battle array to attack the +Sultan of Egypt, Malek-Kamel, a name which means "the Perfect Prince." + +Francis, however, was quite certain that the attempt would be a +ghastly failure. He hardly knew what to do. So he talked it over with +his friend, Brother Illuminato. + +"I know they will be defeated in this attempt," he said. "But if I +tell them so they will treat me as a madman. On the other hand, if +I do not tell them, then my conscience will condemn me. What do you +think I ought to do?" + +"My brother," said Illuminate, "what does the judgment of the world +matter to you? If they say you are mad it will not be the first time!" + +Francis, therefore, went to the Crusaders and warned them. They +laughed scornfully. The order for advance was given. The Crusaders +charged into battle. Francis was in anguish--tears filled his eyes. +The Saracens came out and fell upon the Christian soldiers and +slaughtered them. Over 6000 of them either fell under the scimitar or +were taken prisoner. The Crusaders were defeated. + +Francis' mind was now fully made up. He went to a Cardinal, who +represented the Pope, with the Crusading Army to ask his leave to go +and preach to the Sultan of Egypt. + +"No," said the Cardinal, "I cannot give you leave to go. I know full +well that you would never escape to come back alive. The Sultan of +Egypt has offered a reward of gold to any man who will bring to him +the head of a Christian. That will be your fate." + +"Do suffer us to go, we do not fear death," pleaded Francis and +Illuminato, again and again. + +"I do not know what is in your minds in this," said the Cardinal, "but +beware--if you go--that your thoughts are always to God." + +"We only wish to go for great good, if we can work it," replied +Francis. + +"Then if you wish it so much," the Cardinal at last agreed, "you may +go." + +So Francis and Illuminato girded their loins and tightened their +sandals and set away from the Crusading Army towards the very camp of +the enemy. + +As he walked Francis sang with his full, loud, clear voice. These were +the words that he sang: + + +Yea though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will +fear no evil; for thou art with me; Thy rod and thy staff, they +comfort me. + + +As they walked along over the sandy waste they saw two small sheep +nibbling the sparse grass growing near the Nile. + +"Be of good cheer," said Francis to Illuminato, smiling, "it is the +fulfilling of the Gospel words 'Behold I send you as sheep in the +midst of wolves.'" + +Then there appeared some Saracen soldiers. They were, at first, for +letting the two unarmed men go by; but, on questioning Francis, they +grew angrier and angrier. + +"Are you deserters from the Christian camp?" they asked. + +"No," replied Francis. + +"Are you envoys from the commander come to plead for peace?" + +"No," was the answer again. + +"Will you give up the infidel religion and become a true believer and +say 'There is no God but Allah, and Mahomet is his prophet?'" + +"No, no," cried Francis, "we are come to preach the Good News of Jesus +Christ to the Sultan of Egypt." + +The eyes of the Saracen soldiers opened with amazement: they could +hardly believe their ears. Their faces flushed under their dark skins +with anger. + +"Chain them," they cried to one another. "Beat them--the infidels." + +Chains were brought and snapped upon the wrists and ankles of +Francis and Illuminato. Then they took rods and began to beat the two +men--just as Paul and Silas had been beaten eleven centuries earlier. + +As the rods whistled through the air and came slashing upon their +wounded backs Francis kept crying out one word--"Soldan--Soldan." That +is "Sultan--Sultan." + +He thus made them understand that he wished to be taken to their +Commander-in-Chief. So they decided to take these strange beings to +Malek-Kamel. + +As the Sultan sat in his pavilion Francis and Illuminato were led in. +They bowed and saluted him courteously and Malek-Kamel returned the +salute. + +"Have you come with a message from your Commander?" said the Sultan. + +"No," replied Francis. + +"You wish then to become Saracens--worshippers of Allah in the name of +Mahomet?" + +"Nay, nay," answered Francis, "Saracens we will never be. We have come +with a message from God; it is a message that will save your life. If +you die under the law of Mahomet you are lost. We have come to tell +you so: if you listen to us we will show all this to you." + +The Sultan seems to have been amused and interested rather than angry. + +"I have bishops and archbishops of my own," he said, "they can tell me +all that I wish to know." + +"Of this we are glad," replied Francis, "send and fetch them, if you +will." + +The Sultan agreed; he sent for eight of his Moslem great men. When +they came in he said to them: "See these men, they have come to teach +us a new faith. Shall we listen to them?" + +"Sire," they answered him at once, "thou knowest the law: thou art +bound to uphold it and carry it out. By Mahomet who gave us the law +to slay infidels, we command thee that their heads be cut off. We will +not listen to a word that they say. Off with their heads!" + +The great men, having given their judgment, solemnly left the presence +of the Sultan. The Sultan turned to Francis and Illuminato. + +"Masters," he said to them, "they have commanded me by Mahomet to have +your heads cut off. But I will go against the law, for you have risked +your lives to save my immortal soul. Now leave me for the time." + +The two Christian missionaries were led away; but in a day or two +Malek-Kamel called them to his presence again. + +"If you will stay in my dominions," he said, "I will give you land and +other possessions." + +"Yes," said Francis, "I will stay--on one condition--that you and your +people turn to the worship of the true God. See," he went on, "let +us put it to the test. Your priests here," and he pointed to some who +were standing about, "they will not let me talk with them; will they +do something. Have a great fire lighted. I will walk into the fire +with them: the result will shew you whose faith is the true one." + +As Francis suggested this idea the faces of the Moslem leaders were +transfigured with horror. They turned and quietly walked away. + +"I do not think," said the Sultan with a sarcastic smile at their +retreating backs, "that any of my priests are ready to face the flames +to defend their faith." + +"Well, I will go _alone_ into the fire," said Francis. "If I am +burned--it is because of my sins--if I am protected by God then you +will own Him as your God." + +"No," replied the Sultan, "I will not listen to the idea of such a +trial of your life for my soul." But he was astonished beyond measure +at the amazing faith of Francis. So Francis withdrew from the presence +of the Sultan, who at once sent after him rich and costly presents. + +"You must take them back," said Francis to the messengers; "I will not +take them." + +"Take them to build your churches and support your priests," said the +Sultan through his messengers. + +But Francis would not take any gift from the Sultan. He left him and +went back with Illuminato from the Saracen host to the camp of the +Crusaders. As he was leaving the Sultan secretly spoke with Francis +and said: "Will you pray for me that I may be guided by an inspiration +from above that I may join myself to the religion that is most +approved by God?" + +The Sultan told off a band of his soldiers to go with the two men and +to protect them from any molesting till they reached the Crusaders' +Camp. There is a legend--though no one now can tell whether it is true +or not--that when the Sultan of Egypt lay dying he sent for a disciple +of Francis to be with him and pray for him. Whether this was so or +not, it is quite clear that Francis had left in the memory of the +Sultan such a vision of dauntless faith as he had never seen before or +was ever to see again. + +The Crusaders failed to win Egypt or the Holy Land; but to-day men are +going from America and Britain in the footsteps of Francis of Assisi +the Christian missionary, to carry to the people in Egypt, in the Holy +Land and in all the Near East, the message that Francis took of the +love of Jesus Christ. The stories of some of the deeds they have done +and are to-day doing, we shall read in later chapters in this book. + + + + +Book Two: THE ISLAND ADVENTURERS + + + + +CHAPTER V + +THE ADVENTUROUS SHIP + +_The Duff_ + +(Date of Incident, 1796) + + +A ship crept quietly down the River Thames on an ebb-tide. She was +slipping out from the river into the estuary when suddenly a challenge +rang out across the grey water. + +"What ship is that?" + +"_The Duff_," was the answer that came back from the little ship whose +captain had passed through a hundred hairsbreadth escapes in his life +but was now starting on the strangest adventure of them all. + +"Whither bound?" came the challenge again from the man-o'-war that had +hailed them. + +"Otaheite," came the answer, which would startle the Government +officer. For Tahiti[11] (as we now call it) was many thousands of +miles away in the heart of the South Pacific Ocean. Indeed it had only +been discovered by Captain Cook twenty-eight years earlier in 1768. +_The Duff_ was a small sailing-ship such as one of our American ocean +liners of to-day could put into her dining saloon. + +"What cargo?" The question came again from the officer on the +man-o'-war. + +"Missionaries and provisions," was Captain Wilson's answer. + +The man-o'-war's captain was puzzled. He did not know what strange +beings might be meant by missionaries. He was suspicious. Were they +pirates, perhaps, in disguise! + +We can understand how curious it would sound to him when we remember +that (although Wilfrid and Augustine and Columba had gone to Britain +as missionaries over a thousand years before _The Duff_ started down +the Thames) no cargo of missionaries had ever before sailed from those +North Sea Islands of Britain to the savages of other lands like the +South Sea Islands. + +There was a hurried order and a scurry on board the Government ship. +A boat was let down into the Thames, and half a dozen sailors tumbled +into her and rowed to _The Duff._ What did the officer find? + +He was met at the rail by a man who had been through scores of +adventures, Captain Wilson. The son of the captain of a Newcastle +collier, Wilson had grown up a dare-devil sailor boy. He enlisted as +a soldier in the American war, became captain of a vessel trading with +India, and was then captured and imprisoned by the French in India. He +escaped from prison by climbing a great wall, and dropping down forty +feet on the other side. He plunged into a river full of alligators, +and swam across, escaping the jaws of alligators only to be captured +on the other bank by Indians, chained and made to march barefoot +for 500 miles. Then he was thrust into Hyder Ali's loathsome prison, +starved and loaded with irons, and at last at the end of two years was +set free. + +This was the daring hero who had now undertaken to captain the little +_Duff_ across the oceans of the world to the South Seas. With +Captain Wilson, the man-o'-war officer found also six carpenters, two +shoemakers, two bricklayers, two sailors, two smiths, two weavers, a +surgeon, a hatter, a shopkeeper, a cotton factor, a cabinet-maker, a +draper, a harness maker, a tin worker, a butcher and four ministers. +But they were all of them missionaries. With them were six children. + +All up and down the English Channel French frigates sailed like hawks +waiting to pounce upon their prey; for England was at war with France +in those days. So for five weary weeks _The Duff_ anchored in the +roadstead of Spithead till, as one of a fleet of fifty-seven vessels, +she could sail down the channel and across the Bay of Biscay protected +by British men-o'-war. Safely clear of the French cruisers, _The Duff_ +held on alone till the cloud-capped mountain-heights of Madeira hove +in sight. + +Across the Atlantic she stood, for the intention was to sail round +South America into the Pacific. But on trying to round the Cape Horn +_The Duff_ met such violent gales that Captain Wilson turned her in +her tracks and headed back across the Atlantic for the Cape of Good +Hope. + +Week after week for thousands and thousands of miles she sailed. +She had travelled from Rio de Janiero over 10,000 miles and had only +sighted a single sail--a longer journey than any ship had ever sailed +without seeing land. + +"Shall we see the island to-day?" the boys on board would ask Captain +Wilson. Day after day he shook his head. But one night he said: + +"If the wind holds good to-night we shall see an island in the +morning, but not the island where we shall stop." + +"Land ho!" shouted a sailor from the masthead in the morning, and, +sure enough, they saw away on the horizon, like a cloud on the edge of +the sea, the island of Toobonai.[12] + +As they passed Toobonai the wind rose and howled through the rigging. +It tore at the sail of _The Duff,_ and the great Pacific waves rolled +swiftly by, rushing and hissing along the sides of the little ship and +tossing her on their foaming crests. But she weathered the storm, and, +as the wind dropped, and they looked ahead, they saw, cutting into the +sky-line, the mountain tops of Tahiti. + +It was Saturday night when the island came in sight. Early on the +Sunday morning by seven o'clock _The Duff_ swung round under a gentle +breeze into Matavai[13] Bay and dropped anchor. But before she could +even anchor the whole bay had become alive with Tahitians. They +thronged the beach, and, leaping into canoes, sent them skimming +across the bay to the ship. + +Captain Wilson, scanning the canoes swiftly and anxiously, saw with +relief that the men were not armed. But the missionaries were startled +when the savages climbed up the sides of the ship, and with wondering +eyes rolling in their wild heads peered over the rail of the deck. +They then leapt on board and began dancing like mad on the deck with +their bare feet. From the canoes the Tahitians hauled up pigs, fowl, +fish, bananas, and held them for the white men to buy. But Captain +Wilson and all his company would not buy on that day--for it was +Sunday. + +The missionaries gathered together on deck to hold their Sunday +morning service. The Tahitians stopped dancing and looked on with +amazement, as the company of white men with their children knelt to +pray and then read from the Bible. + +The Tahitians could not understand this strange worship, with no +god that could be seen. But when the white fathers and mothers and +children sang, the savages stood around with wonder and delight on +their faces as they listened to the strange and beautiful sounds. + +But the startling events of the day were not over. For out from the +beach came a canoe across the bay, and in it two Swedish sailors, +named, like some fishermen of long ago, Peter and Andrew. These +white men knew some English, but lived, not as Christians, but as the +natives lived. + +And after them came a great and aged chief named Haamanemane.[14] This +great chief went up to the "chief" of the ship, Captain Wilson, and +called out to him "Taio."[15] + +They did not know what this meant, till Peter the Swede explained +that Haamanemane wished to be the brother--the troth-friend of Captain +Wilson. They were even to change names. Captain Wilson would be called +Haamanemane, and Haamanemane would be called Wilson. + +So Captain Wilson said "Taio," and he and the chief, who was also high +priest of the gods of Tahiti, were brothers. + +Captain Wilson said to Haamanemane, through Peter, who translated each +to the other: + +"We wish to come and live in this island." + +Haamanemane said that he would speak to the king and queen of Tahiti +about it. So he got down again over the side of the vessel into the +canoe, and the paddles of his boatman flashed as they swept along over +the breakers to the beach to tell the king of the great white chief +who had come to visit them. + +All these things happened on the Sunday. On Tuesday word came that the +king and the queen would receive them. So Captain Wilson and all his +missionaries got into the whale-boat and pulled for the shore. The +natives rushed into the water, seized the boat and hauled her aground +out of reach of the great waves. + +They were startled to see the king and queen come riding on the +shoulders of men. Even when one bearer grew tired and the king or +the queen must get upon another, they were not allowed to touch the +ground. The reason was that all the land they touched became their +own, and the people carried them about so that they themselves might +not lose their land and houses by the king and queen touching them. + +So at that place, under the palm trees of Tahiti, with the beating +of the surf on the shore before them, and the great mountain forests +behind, these brown islanders of the South Seas gave a part of their +land to Captain Wilson and his men that they might live there. + +The sons of the wild men of the North Sea Islands had met their first +great adventure in bringing to the men of the South Sea Islands the +story of the love of the Father of all. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[Footnote 11: Ta-hee-tee.] + +[Footnote 12: Too-b[=o]-n[=a]-ee.] + +[Footnote 13: M[=a]-t[)a]-v[)a]-ee.] + +[Footnote 14: Haa-m[)u]-n[=a]y-m[)a]-này.] + +[Footnote 15: Ta-ce-[=o].] + + + + +CHAPTER VI + +THE ISLAND BEACON FIRES + +_Papeiha_[16] + +(Date of Incident, 1823) + + +The edge of the sea was just beginning to gleam with the gold of the +rising sun. The captain of a little ship, that tossed and rolled on +the tumbling ocean, looked out anxiously over the bow. Around him +everywhere was the wild waste of the Pacific Ocean. Through day after +day he had tacked and veered, baffled by contrary winds. Now, with +little food left in the ship, starvation on the open ocean stared them +in the face. + +They were searching for an island of which they had heard, but which +they had never seen. + +The captain searched the horizon again, but he saw nothing, except +that ahead of him, on the sky-line to the S.W., great clouds had +gathered. He turned round and went to the master-missionary--the hero +and explorer and shipbuilder, John Williams, saying: + +"We must give up the search or we shall all be starved." + +John Williams knew that this was true; yet he hated the thought of +going back. He was a scout exploring at the head of God's navy. He had +left his home in London and with his young wife had sailed across the +world to the South Seas to carry the Gospel of Jesus Christ to the +people there. He was living on the island of Raiatea: but as he +himself said, "I cannot be confined within the limits of a single +reef." He wanted to pass on the torch to other islands. So he was now +on this voyage of discovery. + +It was seven o'clock when the captain told John Williams that they +must give up the search. + +"In an hour's time," said Williams, "we will turn back if we have not +sighted Rarotonga." + +So they sailed on. The sun climbed the sky, the cool dawn was giving +way to the heat of day. + +"Go up the mast and look ahead," said Williams to a South Sea Island +native. Then he paced the deck, hoping to hear the cry of "Land," but +nothing could the native see. + +"Go up again," cried Williams a little later. And again there was +nothing. Four times the man climbed the mast, and four times he +reported only sea and sky and cloud. Gradually the sun's heat had +gathered up the great mountains of cloud, and the sky was clear to the +edge of the ocean. Then there came a sudden cry from the masthead: + +"Teie teie, taua fenua, nei!"[17] + +"Here, here is the land we have been seeking." + +All rushed to the bows. As the ship sailed on and they came nearer, +they saw a lovely island. Mountains, towering peak on peak, with deep +green valleys between brown rocky heights hung with vines, and the +great ocean breakers booming in one white line of foaming surf on the +reef of living coral, made it look like a vision of fairyland. + +They had discovered Rarotonga. + +But what of the people of the island? + +They were said to be cannibals. + +Would they receive the missionaries with clubs and spears? Who would +go ashore? + +On board the ship were brown South Sea men from the island where John +Williams lived. They had burned their idols, and now they too were +missionaries of Jesus Christ. Their leader was a fearless young man, +Papeiha. He was so daring that once, when everybody else was afraid to +go from the ship to a cannibal island, he bound his Bible in his loin +cloth, tied them to the top of his head, and swam ashore, defying the +sharks, and unafraid of the still more cruel islanders. + +So at Rarotonga, when the call came, "Who will go ashore?" and a canoe +was let down from the ship's side, two men, Papeiha and his friend +Vahineino,[18] leapt into it. Those two fearlessly paddled towards the +shore, which was now one brown stretch of Rarotongans crowded together +to see this strange ship with wings that had sailed from over the +sea's edge. + +The Rarotongans seemed friendly; so Papeiha and Vahineino, who knew +the ways of the water from babyhood and could swim before they could +walk, waited for a great Pacific breaker, and then swept in on her +foaming crest. The canoe grated on the shore. They walked up the beach +under the shade of a grove of trees and said to the Rarotongan king, +Makea,[19] and his people: + +"We have come to tell you that many of the islands of the sea have +burned their idols. Once we in those islands pierced each other with +spears and beat each other to death with clubs; we brutally treated +our women, and the children taken in war were strung together by their +ears like fish on a line. To-day we come--before you have destroyed +each other altogether in your wars--to tell you of the great God, our +Father, who through His Son Jesus Christ has taught us how to live as +brothers." + +King Makea said he was pleased to hear these things, and came in his +canoe to the ship to take the other native teachers on shore with him. +The ship stood off for the night, for the ocean there is too deep for +anchorage. + +Papeiha and his brown friends, with their wives, went ashore. Night +fell, and they were preparing to sleep, when, above the thud and hiss +of the waves they heard the noise of approaching crowds. The footsteps +and the talking came nearer, while the little group of Christians +listened intently. At last a chief, carried by his warriors, came +near. He was the fiercest and most powerful chief on the island. + +When he came close to Papeiha and his friends, the chief demanded that +the wife of one of the Christian teachers should be given to him, +so that he might take her away with him as his twentieth wife. The +teachers argued with the chief, the woman wept; but he ordered the +woman to be seized and taken off. She resisted, as did the others. +Their clothes were torn to tatters by the ferocious Rarotongans. All +would have been over with the Christians, had not Tapairu,[20] a brave +Rarotongan woman and the cousin of the king, opposed the chiefs and +even fought with her hands to save the teacher's wife. At last the +fierce chief gave in, and Papeiha and his friends, before the sun +had risen, hurried to the beach, leapt into their canoe and paddled +swiftly to the ship. + +"We must wait and come to this island another day when the people are +more friendly," said every one--except Papeiha, who never would turn +back. "Let me stay with them," said he. + +He knew that he might be slain and eaten by the savage cannibals on +the island. But without fuss, leaving everything he had upon the +ship except his clothes and his native Testament, he dropped into his +canoe, seized the paddle, and with swift, strong strokes that never +faltered, drove the canoe skimming over the rolling waves till it +leapt to the summit of a breaking wave and ground upon the shore. + +The savages came jostling and waving spears and clubs as they crowded +round him. + +"Let us take him to Makea." + +So Papeiha was led to the chief. As he walked he heard them shouting +to one another, "I'll have his hat," "I'll have his jacket," "I'll +have his shirt." + +At length he reached the chief, who looked and said, "Speak to us, O +man, that we may know why you persist in coming." + +"I come," he answered, looking round on all the people, "so that you +may all learn of the true God, and that you, like all the people in +the far-off islands of the sea, may take your gods made of wood, of +birds' feathers and of cloth, and burn them." + +A roar of anger and horror burst from the people. "What!" they cried, +"burn the gods! What gods shall we then have? What shall we do without +the gods?" + +They were angry, but there was something in the bold face of Papeiha +that kept them from slaying him. They allowed him to stay, and did not +kill him. + +Soon after this, Papeiha one day heard shrieking and shouting and wild +roars as of men in a frenzy. He saw crowds of people round the gods +offering food to them; the priests with faces blackened with charcoal +and with bodies painted with stripes of red and yellow, the +warriors with great waving head-dresses of birds' feathers and white +sea-shells. Papeiha, without taking any thought of the peril that he +rushed into, went into the midst of the people and said: + +"Why do you act so foolishly? Why do you take a log of wood and carve +it, and then offer it food? It is only fit to be burned. Some day soon +you shall make these very gods fuel for fire." So with the companion +who came to help him, brown Papeiha went in and out of the island just +as brave Paul went in and out in the island of Cyprus and Wilfrid in +Britain. He would take his stand, now under a grove of bananas on +a great stone, and now in a village, where the people from the huts +gathered round, and again on the beach, where he would lift up his +voice above the boom of the ocean breakers to tell the story of Jesus. +And some of those degraded savages became Christians. + +One day he was surprised to see one of the priests come to him leading +his ten-year-old boy. + +"Take care of my boy," said the priest. "I am going to burn my god, +and I do not want my god's anger to hurt the boy. Ask your God to +protect him." So the priest went home. + +Next morning quite early, before the heat of the sun was great, +Papeiha looked out and saw the priest tottering along with bent and +aching shoulders. On his back was his cumbrous wooden god. Behind the +priest came a furious crowd, waving their arms and crying out: + +"Madman, madman, the god will kill you." + +"You may shout," answered the priest, "but you will not change me. +I am going to worship Jehovah, the God of Papeiha." And with that he +threw down the god at the feet of the teachers. One of them ran and +brought a saw, and first cut off its head and then sawed it into logs. +Some of the Rarotongans rushed away in dread. Others--even some of +the newly converted Christians--hid in the bush and peered through +the leaves to see what would happen. Papeiha lit a fire; the logs were +thrown on; the first Rarotongan idol was burned. + +"You will die," cried the priests of the fallen god. But to show that +the god was just a log of wood, the teachers took a bunch of bananas, +placed them on the ashes where the fire had died down, and roasted +them. Then they sat down and ate the bananas. + +The watching, awe-struck people looked to see the teachers fall dead, +but nothing happened. The islanders then began to wonder whether, +after all, the God of Papeiha was not the true God. Within a year they +had got together hundreds of their wooden idols, and had burned them +in enormous bonfires which flamed on the beach and lighted up the dark +background of trees. Those bonfires could be seen far out across the +Pacific Ocean, like a beacon light. + +To-day the flames of love which Papeiha bravely lighted, through +perils by water and club and cannibal feast, have shone right across +the ocean, and some of the grandchildren of those very Rarotongans who +were cannibals when Papeiha went there, have sailed away, as we shall +see later on, to preach Papeiha's gospel of the love of God to the +far-off cannibal Papuans on the steaming shores of New Guinea. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[Footnote 16: P[)a]-pay-ee-h[)a].] + +[Footnote 17: Tay-ee-ay: ta-oo-a: fay-noo-[)a]: nay-ee.] + +[Footnote 18: Va-hee-nay-ee-n[=o].] + +[Footnote 19: M[)a]-kay-[)a].] + +[Footnote 20: T[)a]-p[=a]-ee-roo.] + + + + +CHAPTER VII + +THE DAYBREAK CALL + +_John Williams_ (Date of Incident, 1839) + + +Two men leaned on the rail of the brig _Camden_ as she swept slowly +along the southern side of the Island of Erromanga in the Western +Pacific. A steady breeze filled her sails. The sea heaved in long, +silky billows. The red glow of the rising sun was changing to the +full, clear light of morning. + +The men, as they talked, scanned the coast-line closely. There was the +grey, stone-covered beach, and, behind the beach, the dense bush and +the waving fronds of palms. Behind the palms rose the volcanic hills +of the island. The elder man straightened himself and looked keenly to +the bay from which a canoe was swiftly gliding. + +He was a broad, sturdy man, with thick brown hair over keen watchful +eyes. His open look was fearless and winning. His hands, which grasped +the rail, had both the strength and the skill of the trained mechanic +and the writer. For John Williams could build a ship, make a boat and +sail them both against any man in all the Pacific. He could work with +his hammer at the forge in the morning, make a table at his joiner's +bench in the afternoon, preach a powerful sermon in the evening, and +write a chapter of the most thrilling of books on missionary travel +through the night. Yet next morning would see him in his ship, with +her sails spread, moving out into the open Pacific, bound for a +distant island. + +"It is strange," Williams was saying to his friend Mr. Cunningham, +"but I have not slept all through the night." + +How came it that this man, who for over twenty years had faced +tempests by sea, who had never flinched before perils from savage men +and from fever, on the shores of a hundred islands in the South Seas, +should stay awake all night as his ship skirted the strange island of +Erromanga? + +It was because, having lived for all those years among the coral +islands of the brown Polynesians of the Eastern Pacific, he was now +sailing to the New Hebrides, where the fierce black cannibal islanders +of the Western Pacific slew one another. As he thought of the fierce +men of Erromanga he thought of the waving forests of brown hands he +had seen, the shouts of "Come back again to us!" that he had heard +as he left his own islands. He knew how those people loved him in the +Samoan Islands, but he could not rest while others lay far off who +had never heard the story of Jesus. "I cannot be content," he said, +"within the narrow limits of a single reef." + +But the black islanders were wild men who covered their dark faces +with soot and painted their lips with flaming red, yet their cruel +hearts were blacker than their faces, and their anger more fiery than +their scarlet lips. They were treacherous and violent savages who +would smash a skull by one blow with a great club; or leaping on a man +from behind, would cut through his spine with a single stroke of their +tomahawks, and then drag him off to their cannibal oven. + +John Williams cared so much for his work of telling the islanders +about God their Father, that he lay awake wondering how he could +carry it on among these wild people. It never crossed his mind that +he should hold back to save himself from danger. It was for this work +that he had crossed the world. + +"Let down the whale-boat." His voice rang out without a tremor of +fear. His eyes were on the canoe in which three black Erromangans were +paddling across the bay. As the boat touched the water, he and the +crew of four dropped into her, with Captain Morgan and two friends, +Harris and Cunningham. The oars dipped and flashed in the morning sun +as the whale-boat flew along towards the canoe. When they reached it, +Williams spoke in the dialects of his other islands, but none could +the three savages in the canoe understand. So he gave them some beads +and fish-hooks as a present to show that he was a friend and again his +boat shot away toward the beach. + +They pulled to a creek where a brook ran down in a lovely valley +between two mountains. On the beach stood some Erromangan natives, +with their eyes (half fierce, half frightened) looking out under their +matted jungle of hair. + +Picking up a bucket from the boat, Williams held it out to the chief +and made signs to show that he wished for water from the brook. The +chief took the bucket, and, turning, ran up the beach and disappeared. +For a quarter of an hour they waited; and for half an hour. At last, +when the sun was now high in the sky, the chief returned with the +water. + +Williams drank from the water to show his friendliness. Then his +friend, Harris, swinging himself over the side of the boat, waded +ashore through the cool, sparkling, shallow water and sat down. The +natives ran away, but soon came back with cocoa-nuts and opened them +for him to drink. + + * * * * * + +"See," said Williams, "there are boys playing on the beach; that is a +good sign." + +"Yes," answered Captain Morgan, "but there are no women, and when the +savages mean mischief they send their women away." + +Williams now waded ashore and Cunningham followed him. Captain Morgan +stopped to throw out the anchor of his little boat and then stepped +out and went ashore, leaving his crew of four brown islanders resting +on their oars. + +Williams and his two companions scrambled up the stony beach over +the grey stones and boulders alongside the tumbling brook for over a +hundred yards. Turning to the right they were lost to sight from the +water-edge. Captain Morgan was just following them when he heard a +terrified yell from the crew in the boat. + +Williams and his friends had gone into the bush, Harris in front, +Cunningham next, and Williams last. Suddenly Harris, who had +disappeared in the bush, rushed out followed by yelling savages with +clubs. Harris rushed down the bank of the brook, stumbled, and fell +in. The water dashed over him, and the Erromangans, with the red fury +of slaughter in their eyes, leapt in and beat in his skull with clubs. + +Cunningham, with a native at his heels with lifted club, stooped, +picked up a great pebble and hurled it full at the savage who was +pursuing him. The man was stunned. Turning again, Cunningham leapt +safely into the boat. + +Williams, leaving the brook, had rushed down the beach to leap into +the sea. Reaching the edge of the water, where the beach falls steeply +into the sea, he slipped on a pebble and fell into the water. + +Cunningham, from the boat, hurled stones at the natives rushing at +Williams, who lay prostrate in the water with a savage over him with +uplifted club. The club fell, and other Erromangans, rushing in, beat +him with their clubs and shot their arrows into him until the ripples +of the beach ran red with his blood. + +The hero who had carried the flaming torch of peace on earth to +the savages on scores of islands across the great Pacific Ocean was +dead--the first martyr of Erromanga. + + * * * * * + +When _The Camden_ sailed back to Samoa, scores of canoes put out to +meet her. A brown Samoan guided the first canoe. + +"Missi William," he shouted. + +"He is dead," came the answer. + +The man stood as though stunned. He dropped his paddle; he drooped his +head, and great tears welled out from the eyes of this dark islander +and ran down his cheeks. + +The news spread like wildfire over the islands, and from all +directions came the natives crying in multitudes: + +"Aue,[21] Williamu, Aue, Tama!" (Alas, Williams, Alas, our Father!) + +And the chief Malietoa,[22] coming into the presence of Mrs. Williams, +cried: + +"Alas, Williamu, Williamu, our father, our father! He has turned his +face from us! We shall never see him more! He that brought us the good +word of Salvation is gone! O cruel heathen, they know not what they +did! How great a man they have destroyed!" + +John Williams, the torch-bearer of the Pacific, whom the brown +men loved, the great pioneer, who dared death on the grey beach +of Erromanga, sounds a morning bugle-call to us, a Reveillè to our +slumbering camps: + + "The daybreak call, +Hark how loud and clear I hear it sound; Swift to your places, swift +to the head of the army, Pioneers, O Pioneers!"[23] + +FOOTNOTES: + +[Footnote 21: A-oo-ay.] + +[Footnote 22: M[)a]-lee-ay-to-[)a].] + +[Footnote 23: Walt Whitman.] + + + + +CHAPTER VIII + +KAPIOLANI, THE HEROINE OF HAWAII + +_Kapiolani_ + +(Date of Incident, 1824) + + +"Pélé[24] the all-terrible, the fire goddess, will hurl her thunder +and her stones, and will slay you," cried the angry priests of +Hawaii.[25] "You no longer pay your sacrifices to her. Once you gave +her hundreds of hogs, but now you give nothing. You worship the new +God Jehovah. She, the great Pélé, will come upon you, she and +the Husband of Thunder, with the Fire-Thruster, and the Red-Fire +Cloud-Queen, they will destroy you altogether." + +The listening Hawaiians shuddered as they saw the shaggy priests +calling down the anger of Pélé. One of the priests was a gigantic man +over six feet five inches high, whose strength was so terrible that he +could leap at his victims and break their bones by his embrace. + +Away there in the volcanic island[26] in the centre of the greatest +ocean in the world--the Pacific Ocean--they had always as children +been taught to fear the great goddess. + +They were Christians; but they had only been Christians for a short +time, and they still trembled at the name of the goddess Pélé, who +lived up in the mountains in the boiling crater of the fiery volcano, +and ruled their island. + +Their fathers had told them how she would get angry, and would pour +out red-hot rivers of molten stone that would eat up all the trees and +people and run hissing into the Pacific Ocean. There to that day was +that river of stone--a long tongue of cold, hard lava--stretching +down to the shore of the island, and here across the trees on the +mountain-top could be seen, even now, the smoke of her anger. +Perhaps, after all, Pélé was greater than Jehovah--she was certainly +terrible--and she was very near! + +"If you do not offer fire to her, as you used to do," the priests went +on, "she will pour down her fire into the sea and kill all your fish. +She will fill up your fishing grounds with the pahoehoe[27] (lava), +and you will starve. Great is Pélé and greatly to be feared." + +The priests were angry because the preaching of the missionaries had +led many away from the worship of Pélé which, of course, meant fewer +hogs for themselves; and now the whole nation on Hawaii, that volcanic +island of the seas, seemed to be deserting her. + +The people began to waver under the threats, but a brown-faced woman, +with strong, fearless eyes that looked out with scorn on Pélé priests, +was not to be terrified. + +"It is Kapiolani,[28] the chieftainess," murmured the people to one +another. "She is Christian; will she forsake Jehovah and return to +Pélé?" + +Only four years before this, Kapiolani had--according to the custom of +the Hawaiian chieftainesses, married many husbands, and she had given +way to drinking habits. Then she had become a Christian, giving up her +drinking and sending away all her husbands save one. She had thrown +away her idols and now taught the people in their huts the story of +Christ. + +"Pélé is nought," she declared, "I will go to Kilawea,[29] the +mountain of the fires where the smoke and stones go up, and Pélé shall +not touch me. My God, Jehovah, made the mountain and the fires within +it too, as He made us all." + +So it was noised through the island that Kapiolani, the queenly, would +defy Pélé the goddess. The priests threatened her with awful torments +of fire from the goddess; her people pleaded with her not to dare the +fires of Kilawea. But Kapiolani pressed on, and eighty of her people +made up their minds to go with her. She climbed the mountain paths, +through lovely valleys hung with trees, up and up to where the hard +rocky lava-river cut the feet of those who walked upon it. + +Day by day they asked her to go back, and always she answered, "If I +am destroyed you may believe in Pélé; if I live you must all believe +in the true God, Jehovah." + +As she drew nearer to the crater she saw the great cloud of smoke that +came up from the volcano and felt the heat of its awful fires. But she +did not draw back. + +As she climbed upward she saw by the side of the path low bushes, and +on them beautiful red and yellow berries, growing in clusters. The +berries were like large currants. + +"It is chelo,"[30] said the priests, "it is Pélé's berry. You must not +touch them unless we ask her. She will breathe fire on you." + +Kapiolani broke off a branch from one of the bushes regardless of +the horrified faces of the priests. And she ate the berries, without +stopping to ask the goddess for her permission. + +She carried a branch of the berries in her hand. If she had told them +what she was going to do they would have been frenzied with fear and +horror. + +Up she climbed until the full terrors of the boiling crater of Kilawea +burst on her sight. Before her an immense gulf yawned in the shape of +the crescent moon, eight miles in circumference and over a thousand +feet deep. Down in the smoking hollow, hundreds of feet beneath her, a +lake of fiery lava rolled in flaming waves against precipices of +rock. This ever-moving lake of molten fire is called: "The House of +Everlasting Burning." This surging lake was dotted with tiny mountain +islets, and, from the tops of their little peaks, pyramids of flame +blazed and columns of grey smoke went up. From some of these little +islands streams of blazing lava rolled down into the lake of fire. The +air was filled with the roar of the furnaces of flame. + +Even the fearless Kapiolani stood in awe as she looked. But she did +not flinch, though here and there, as she walked, the crust of the +lava cracked under her feet and the ground was hot with hidden fire. + +She came to the very edge of the crater. To come so far without +offering hogs and fish to the fiery goddess was in itself enough to +bring a fiery river of molten lava upon her. Kapiolani offered nothing +save defiance. Audacity, they thought, could go no further. + +Here, a priestess of Pélé came, and raising her hands in threat +denounced death on the head of Kapiolani if she came further. +Kapiolani pulled from her robe a book. In it--for it was her +New Testament--she read to the priestess of the one true, loving +Father-God. + +Then Kapiolani did a thing at which the very limbs of those who +watched trembled and shivered. She went to the edge of the crater and +stepped over onto a jutting rock and let herself down and down toward +the sulphurous burning lake. The ground cracked under her feet and +sulphurous steam hissed through crevices in the rock, as though the +demons of Pélé fumed in their frenzy. Hundreds of staring, wondering +eyes followed her, fascinated and yet horrified. + +Then she stood on a ledge of rock, and, offering up prayer and praise +to the God of all, Who made the volcano and Who made her, she cast the +Pélé berries into the lake, and sent stone after stone down into the +flaming lava. It was the most awful insult that could be offered to +Pélé! Now surely she would leap up in fiery anger, and, with a hail +of burning stones, consume Kapiolani. But nothing happened; and +Kapiolani, turning, climbed the steep ascent of the crater edge and at +last stood again unharmed among her people. She spoke to her people, +telling them again that Jehovah made the fires. She called on them all +to sing to His praise and, for the first time, there rang across the +crater of Kilawea the song of Christians. The power of the priests +was gone, and from that hour the people all over that island who had +trembled and hesitated between Pélé and Christ turned to the worship +of our Lord Jesus, the Son of God the Father Almighty. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[Footnote 24: Pay-lay.] + +[Footnote 25: Hah-wye-ee.] + +[Footnote 26: Discovered by Captain Cook in 1778. The first Christian +missionaries landed in 1819. Now the island is ruled by the United +States of America.] + +[Footnote 27: Pa-h[=o]-è-h[=o]-è.] + +[Footnote 28: Kah-pèe-[=o]-l[)a]-nèe. She was high female chief, in +her own right, of a large district.] + +[Footnote 29: Kil-a-wee-[)a]. The greatest active volcano in the +world.] + +[Footnote 30: Chay-lo.] + + + + +CHAPTER IX + +THE CANOE OF ADVENTURE + +_Elikana_ + +(Date of Incident, 1861) + + + "I know not where His islands lift + Their fronded palms in air; + I only know I cannot drift + Beyond His love and care." + + +I + +Manihiki Island looked like a tiny anchored canoe far away across +the Pacific, as Elikana glanced back from his place at the tiller. He +sang, meantime, quietly to himself an air that still rang in his ears, +the tune that he and his brother islanders had sung in praise of +the Power and Providence of God at the services on Manihiki. For the +Christian people of the Penrhyn group of South Sea Islands had come +together in April, 1861, for their yearly meeting, paddling from the +different quarters in their canoes through the white surge of the +breakers that thunder day and night round the island. + +Elikana looked ahead to where his own island of Rakahanga grew clearer +every moment on the sky-line ahead of them, though each time his craft +dropped into the trough of the sea between the green curves of the +league-long ocean rollers the island was lost from sight. + +He and his six companions were sailing back over the thirty miles +between Manihiki and Rakahanga, two of the many little lonely ocean +islands that stud the Pacific like stars. + +They sailed a strange craft, for it cannot be called raft or canoe +or hut. It was all these and yet was neither. Two canoes, forty-eight +feet long, sailed side by side. Between the canoes were spars, +stretching across from one to the other, lashed to each boat and +making a platform between them six feet wide. On this was built a hut, +roofed with the beautiful braided leaves of the cocoa-nut palm. + +Overhead stretched the infinite sky. Underneath lay thousands of +fathoms of blue-green ocean, whose cold, hidden deeps among the +mountains and valleys of the awful ocean under-world held strange +goblin fish-shapes. And on the surface this hut of leaves and bamboo +swung dizzily between sky and ocean on the frail canoes. And in the +canoes and the hut were six brown Rakahangan men, two women, and a +chubby, dark-eyed child, who sat contented and tired, being lapped to +sleep by the swaying waters. + +Above them the great sail made of matting of fibre, strained in +the breeze that drove them nearer to the haven where they would be. +Already they could see the gleam of the Rakahanga beach with the rim +of silver where the waves broke into foam. Then the breeze dropped. +The fibre-sail flapped uneasily against the mast, while the two little +canvas sails hung loosely, as the wind, with little warning, swung +round, and smiting them in the face began to drive them back into the +ocean again. + +Elikana and his friends knew the sea almost like fish, from the time +they were babies. And they were little troubled by the turn of the +breeze, save that it would delay their homecoming. They tried in vain +to make headway. Slowly, but surely they were driven back from land, +till they could see that there was no other thing but just to turn +about and let her run back to Manihiki. In the canoes were enough +cocoa-nuts to feed them for days if need be, and two large calabashes +of water. + +The swift night fell, but the wind held strong, and one man sat at +the tiller while two others baled out the water that leaked into the +canoes. They kept a keen watch, expecting to sight Manihiki; but when +the dawn flashed out of the sky in the East, where the island should +have been, there was neither Manihiki nor any other land at all. They +had no chart nor compass; north and south and east and west stretched +the wastes of the Pacific for hundreds of leagues. Only here and there +in the ocean, and all unseen to them, like little groups of mushrooms +on a limitless prairie, lay groups of islets. + +They might, indeed, sail for a year without ever sighting any land; +and one storm-driven wave of the great ocean could smite their little +egg-shell craft to the bottom of the sea. + +They gathered together in the hut and with anxious faces talked of +what they might do. They knew that far off to the southwest lay the +islands of Samoa, and Rarotonga. So they set the bows of their craft +southward. Morning grew to blazing noon and fell to evening and night, +and nothing did they see save the glittering sparkling waters of the +uncharted ocean, cut here and there by the cruel fin of a waiting +shark. It was Saturday when they started; and night fell seven times +while their wonderful hut-boat crept southward along the water, till +the following Friday. Then the wind changed, and, springing up from +the south, drove them wearily back once more in their tracks, and then +bore them eastward. + +For another week they drove before the breeze, feeding on the +cocoa-nuts. But the water in the calabashes was gone. Then on +the morning of the second Friday, the fourteenth day of their +sea-wanderings, just when the sun in mid heaven was blazing its +noon-heat upon them and most of the little crew were lying under +the shade of the hut and the sail to doze away the hours of tedious +hunger, they heard the cry of "Land!" and leaping to their feet gazed +ahead at the welcome sight. With sail and paddle they urged the craft +on toward the island. + +Then night fell, and with it squalls of wind and rain came +and buffeted them till they had to forsake the paddles for the +bailing-vessels to keep the boat afloat. Taking down the sails they +spread them flat to catch the pouring rain, and then poured this +precious fresh water--true water of life to them--into their +calabashes. But when morning came no land could be seen anywhere. It +was as though the island had been a land of enchantment and mirage, +and now had faded away. Yet hope sprang in them erect and glad next +day when land was sighted again; but the sea and the wind, as though +driven by the spirits of contrariness, smote them back. + +For two more days they guided the canoe with the tiller and tried to +set her in one steady direction. Then, tired and out of heart, after +sixteen days of ceaseless and useless effort, they gave it up and let +her drift, for the winds and currents to take her where they would. + +At night each man stood in his canoe almost starving and parched with +thirst, with aching back, stooping to dip the water from the canoe and +rising to pour it over the side. For hour after hour, while the calm +moon slowly climbed the sky, each slaved at his dull task. Lulled by +the heave and fall of the long-backed rollers as they slid under the +keels of the canoes, the men nearly dropped asleep where they +stood. The quiet waters crooned to them like a mother singing an old +lullaby--crooned and called, till a voice deep within them said, "It +is better to lie down and sleep and die than to live and fight and +starve." + +Then a moan from the sleeping child, or a sight of a streaming ray +of moonlight on the face of its mother would send that nameless Voice +shivering back to its deep hiding-place--and the man would stoop and +bail again. + +Each evening as it fell saw their anxious eyes looking west and north +and south for land, and always there was only the weary waste of +waters. And as the sun rose, they hardly dared open their eyes to the +unbroken rim of blue-grey that circled them like a steel prison. They +saw the thin edge of the moon grow to full blaze and then fade to a +corn sickle again as days and nights grew to weeks and a whole month +had passed. + +Every morning, as the pearl-grey sea turned to pink and then to +gleaming blue, they knelt on the raft between the canoes and turned +their faces up to their Father in prayer, and never did the sun sink +behind the rim of waters without the sound of their voices rising into +the limitless sky with thanks for safe-keeping. + +Slowly the pile of cocoa-nuts lessened. Each one of them with its +sweet milk and flesh was more precious to them than a golden chalice +set with rubies. The drops of milk that dripped from them were more +than ropes of pearls. + +At last eight Sundays had followed one upon another; and now at the +end of the day there was only the half of one cocoa-nut remaining. +When that was gone--all would be over. So they knelt down under the +cloudless sky on an evening calm and beautiful. They were on that +invisible line in the Great Pacific where the day ends and begins. +Those seven on the tiny craft were, indeed, we cannot but believe, the +last worshippers in all the great world-house of God as Sunday drew +to its end just where they were. Was it to be the last time that they +would pray to God in this life? + +Prayer ended; night was falling. Elikana the leader, who had kept +their spirits from utterly failing, stood up and gazed out with great +anxious eyes before the last light should fail. + +"Look, there upon the edge of the sea where the sun sets. Is it--" He +could hardly dare to believe that it was not the mirage of his weary +brain. But one and another and then all peered out through the swiftly +waning light and saw that indeed it was land. + +Then a squall of wind sprang up, blowing them away from the land. Was +this last hope, by a fine ecstasy of torture, to be dangled before +them and then snatched away? But with the danger came the help; with +the wind came the rain; cool, sweet, refreshing, life-giving water. +Then the squall of wind dropped and changed. They hoisted the one sail +that had not blown to tatters, and drove for land. + +Yet their most awful danger still lay before them. The roar of the +breakers on the cruel coral reef caught their ears. But there was +nothing for it but to risk the peril. They were among the breakers +which caught and tossed them on like eggshells. The scourge of the +surf swept them; a woman, a man--even the child, were torn from them +and ground on the ghastly teeth of the coral. Five were swept over +with the craft into the still, blue lagoon, and landing they fell +prone upon the shore, just breathing and no more, after the giant +buffeting of the thundering rollers, following the long, slow +starvation of their wonderful journey in the hut on the canoes among +"the waters of the wondrous isles." + + "Wake: the silver dusk returning + Up the beach of darkness brims, + And the ship of sunrise burning + Strands upon the eastern rims." + + +II + +Thrown up by the ocean in the darkness like driftwood, Elikana and his +companions lay on the grey shore. Against the dim light of the stars +and beyond the beach of darkness they could see the fronds of +the palms waving. The five survivors were starving, and the green +cocoa-nuts hung above them, filled with food and drink. But their +bodies, broken and tormented as they were by hunger and the battering +breakers, refused even to rise and climb for the food that meant life. +So they lay there, as though dead. + + * * * * * + +Over the ridge of the beach came a man. His pale copper skin shone in +the fresh sunlight of the morning. His quick black eyes were caught by +the sight of torn clothing hanging on a bush. Moving swiftly down the +beach of pounded coral, he saw a man lying with arms thrown out, face +downward. Turning the body over Faivaatala[31] found that the man was +dead. Taking the body in his arms he staggered with it up the beach, +and placed it under the shade of the trees. Returning he found the +living five. Their gaunt bodies and the broken craft on the shore told +him without words the story of their long drifting over the wilderness +of the waters. + +Without stopping to waste words in empty sympathy with starving men, +Faivaatala ran to the nearest cocoa-nut tree and, climbing it, threw +down luscious nuts. Those below quickly knocked off the tops, drank +deep draughts of the cool milk and then ate. Coming down again, +Faivaatala kindled a fire and soon had some fish grilling for these +strange wanderers thrown up on the tiny islet. + +They had no time to thank him before he ran off and swiftly paddled +to Motutala, the island where he lived, to tell the story of these +strange castaways. He came back with other helpers in canoes, and the +five getting aboard were swiftly paddled to Motutala. + +As the canoes skimmed over the surface of the great lagoon Elikana +and his friends could see, spread out in a great semi-circle that +stretched to the horizon, the long low coral islets crowned with palms +which form part of the Ellice Islands. + +The islanders, men, women, and children, ran down the beach to see the +newcomers and soon had set apart huts for them and made them welcome. +Elikana gathered them round him, and began to tell them about the +love of Jesus and the protecting care of God the Father. It all seemed +strange to them, but quickly they learned from him, and he began to +teach them and their children. This went on for four months, till one +day Elikana said: "I must go away and learn more so that I can teach +you more." + +But they had become so fond of Elikana that they said: "No, you must +not leave us," and it was only when he promised to come back with +another teacher to help him, that they could bring themselves to part +with him. So when a ship came to the island to trade in cocoa-nuts +Elikana went aboard and sailed to Samoa to the London Missionary +Society's training college there at Malua. + + * * * * * + +"A ship! A ship!" The cry was taken up through the island, and the +people running down the beach saw a large sailing vessel. Boats put +down and sculls flashed as sailors pulled swiftly to the shore. + +They landed and the people gathered round to see and to hear what they +would say. + +"Come onto our ship," said these men, who had sailed there from Peru, +"and we will show you how you can be rich with many knives and much +calico." + +But the islanders shook their heads and said they would stay where +they were. Then a wicked white man named Tom Rose, who lived on the +island and knew how much the people were looking forward to the day +when Elikana would come back to teach them, went to the traders and +whispered what he knew to them. + +So the Peruvian traders, with craft shining in their eyes, turned +again to the islanders and said: "If you will come with us, we will +take you where you will be taught all that men can know about God." + +At this the islanders broke out into glad cries and speaking to one +another said: "Let us go and learn these things." + +The day came for sailing, and as the sun rose, hundreds of brown feet +were running to the beach, children dancing with excitement, women +saying "Goodbye" to their husbands--men, who for the first time in +all their lives were to leave their tiny islet for the wonderful world +beyond the ocean. + +So two hundred of them went on board. The sails were hoisted and they +went away never to return; sailed away not to learn of Jesus, but to +the sting of the lash and the shattering bullet, the bondage of the +plantations, and to death at the hands of those merciless beasts of +prey, the Peruvian slavers. + + * * * * * + +Years passed and a little fifty-ton trading vessel came to anchor +outside the reef. One man and then another and another got down into +the little boat and pulled for the shore. Elikana had returned. The +women and children ran down to meet him--but few men were there, for +nearly all had gone. + +"Where is this one? Where is the other?" cried Elikana, with sad face +as he looked around on them. + +"Gone, gone," came the answer; "carried away by the man-stealing +ships." + +Elikana turned to the white missionary who had come with him, to ask +what they could do. + +"We will leave Joane and his wife here," replied Mr. Murray. + + * * * * * + +So a teacher from Samoa stayed there and taught the people, while +Elikana went to begin work in an island near by. + +To-day a white lady missionary has gone to live in the Ellice Islands, +and the people are Christians, and no slave-trader can come to snatch +them away. + +So there sailed over the waters of the wondrous isles first the boat +of sunrise and then the ship of darkness, and last of all the ship +of the Peace of God. The ship of darkness had seemed for a time to +conquer, but her day is now over; and to-day on that beach, as the +sunlight brims over the edge of the sea, and a new Lord's Day dawns, +you may hear the islanders sing their praise to the Light of the +World, Who shines upon them and keeps them safe. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[Footnote 31: F[)a]-ee-v[)a] t[)a] l[=a].] + + + + +CHAPTER X + +THE ARROWS OF SANTA CRUZ + +_Bishop Patteson_ + +(Date of Incident--August 15th, 1864) + + +The brown crew of _The Southern Cross_ breathed freely again as the +anchor swung into place and the schooner began to nose her way out +into the open Pacific. They were hardened to dangers, but the Island +of Tawny Cannibals had strained their nerve, by its hourly perils +from club and flying arrow. The men were glad to see their ship's bows +plunge freely again through the long-backed rollers. + +As they set her course to the Island of Santa Cruz the crew talked +together of the men of the island they had left. In his cabin sat a +great bronzed bearded man writing a letter to his own people far away +on the other side of the world. Here are the very words that he wrote +as he told the story of one of the dangers through which they had just +passed on the island: + + "As I sat on the beach with a crowd about me, most of them + suddenly jumped up and ran off. Turning my head I saw a man (from + the boat they saw two) coming to me with club uplifted. I remained + sitting and held out a few fish-hooks to him, but one or two men + jumped up and, seizing him by the waist, forced him off. + + "After a few minutes I went back to the boat. I found out that + a poor fellow called Moliteum was shot dead two months ago by a + white trader for stealing a bit of calico. The wonder was, not + that they wanted to avenge the death of their kinsman, but that + others should have prevented it. How could they possibly know that + I was not one of the wicked set? Yet they did.... The plan of + going among the people unarmed makes them regard me as a friend." + +Then he says of these men who had just tried to kill him: "The people, +though constantly fighting, and cannibals and the rest of it, are to +me very attractive." + +The ship sailed on till they heard ahead of them the beating of the +surf on the reef of Santa Cruz. Behind the silver line of the breakers +the waving fronds of her palms came into sight. They put _The Southern +Cross_ in, cast anchor, and let a boat down from her side. Into the +boat tumbled a British sailor named Pearce, a young twenty-year-old +Englishman named Atkin, and three brown South-Sea Island boys from the +missionary training college for native teachers on Norfolk Island, +and their leader, Bishop Patteson, the white man who, having faced the +clubs of savages on a score of islands, never flinched from walking +into peril again to lead them to know of "the best Man in the world, +Jesus Christ." These brown boys were young helpers of Bishop Patteson. +And one of them especially, Fisher Young, would have died for his +great white leader gladly. They were like father and son. + +The reef, covered at mid-tide with curling waters mottled with the +foam of the broken waves, was alive with men; while the beach beyond +was black with crowds of the wild islanders who had come down to see +the strange visitors from the ship. The four men sculled the boat +on to the edge of the reef and then rested on their oars as Patteson +swung himself over the side into the cool water. He waded across the +reef between the hosts of savages, and in every hand was a club or +spear or a six-foot wooden bow with an arrow ready to notch in its +bamboo string. + +Patteson had come to make friends with them. So he entered a dark +wattled house and sat down to talk. The doorway was filled with +the faces of wondering men. As he looked on them a strange gleam of +longing came into his eyes and a smile of great tenderness softened +the strength of his brown face--the longing and the tenderness of +a shepherd looking for wandering sheep who are lost on the wild +mountains of the world. + +Then he rose, left the house, and went back to the boat. The water was +now one seething cauldron of men--walking, splashing, swimming. Some, +as Patteson climbed into his boat, caught hold of the gunwale and +could hardly be made to loosen their hold. The four young fellows in +the boat swung their oars and got her under way, but they had made +barely half a dozen strokes when, without warning, an arrow whizzed +through the air into the boat. A cloud of arrows followed. + +Six canoes were now filled with savage Santa Cruzans, who surrounded +the boat and joined in the shooting. Patteson, who was in the stern +between his boys and the bowmen, had not shipped the rudder, so +he held it up, as the boat shot ahead of the canoes, to shield off +arrows. + +Turning round to see whither his now rudderless boat was being pulled, +he saw that they were heading for a little bay in the reef, which +would have wrecked their hopes of safety. + +"Pull, port oars, pull on steadily," shouted Patteson; and they made +for _The Southern Cross_. + +As he called to them he saw Pearce, the young British sailor, lying +between the thwarts with the long shaft of an arrow in his chest, and +a young Norfolk Islander with an arrow under his left eye. The +arrows flew around them in clouds, and suddenly Fisher Young--the +nineteen-year-old Polynesian whom he loved as a son--who was pulling +stroke, gave a faint scream. He was shot through the left wrist. + +"Look out, sir! close to you," cried one of his crew. But the arrows +were all around him. All the way to the schooner the canoes skimmed +over the water chasing the boat. The four youths, including the +wounded, pulled on bravely and steadily. At last they reached the ship +and climbed on board, while the canoes--fearing vengeance from the men +on the schooner--turned and fled. + +Once aboard, Bishop Patteson knelt by the side of Pearce, drew out +the arrow which had run more than five inches deep into his chest, +and bound up his wound. Turning to Fisher, he found that the arrow had +gone through the wrist and had broken off in the wound. Taking hold +of the point of the arrow where it stood out on the lower side of the +wrist, Patteson pulled it through, though the agony of the boy was +very great. + +The arrows were wooden-headed and not poisoned. The wounds seemed to +be healing, but a few days later Fisher said, "I can't make out what +makes my jaws feel so stiff." + +Fisher Young was the grandson of fierce, foul Pitcairn Island +cannibals, and was himself a brave and pure Christian lad. He had +faced death with his master many times on coral reefs, in savage +villages, on wild seas and under the clubs of Pacific islanders. Now +he was face to face with something more difficult than a swift +and dangerous adventure--the slow, dying agony of lockjaw. He grew +steadily worse in spite of everything that Patteson could do. + +Near to the end he said faintly, "Kiss me; I am very glad I was doing +my duty. Tell my father that I was in the path of duty, and he will be +so glad. Poor Santa Cruz people!" + +He spoke in that way of the people who had killed him. The young brown +hero lies to-day, as he would have wished, in the port that was named +after the Bishop whom he loved, and who was his hero, Port Patteson. + +"I loved him," said Patteson, "as I think I never loved anyone else." +Fisher's love to his Bishop had been that of a youth to the hero whom +he worships, but Patteson had led that brown islander still further, +for he had taught the boy to love the Hero of all heroes, Jesus +Christ. + + + + +CHAPTER XI + +FIVE KNOTS IN A PALM LEAF + +_The Death of Patteson_ + +(Date of Incident, September 20th, 1871) + + +The masts of the schooner _The Southern Cross_ swung gently to and +fro across the darkening sky as the long, calm rollers of the Pacific +slipped past her hull. Her bows spread only a ripple of water as the +slight breeze bore her slowly towards the island of Nukapu.[32] + +On deck stood a group of men, their brown faces turned to a tall, +bearded man. As the light of the setting sun gleamed on his bronze +face, it kindled his brave eyes and showed the grave smile that played +about the corners of his mouth. They all looked on him with that +worship which strong men give to a hero, who can be both brave and +kindly. But "he wist not that his face shone" for them. + +Patteson read to these young men from a Book; and the words that +he read were these: "And they stoned Stephen, calling upon God and +saying, 'Lord Jesus, receive my spirit.' And he knelt down and cried, +with a loud voice, 'Lord, lay not this sin to their charge'; and when +he had said this, he fell asleep." + +When he had spoken to them strongly on these words and said how it may +come to any man who worships Jesus to suffer so, Bishop Patteson and +all except the man on watch went to their sleep. The South Sea Island +men and the young Englishman who were there remembered all their +lives what Patteson had said that evening; partly because these men +themselves had seen him brave such a death as Stephen's again and +again, and, indeed, they had themselves stood in peril by his side +face to face with threatening savages, but even more because of the +adventure that came to them on the next day. + +At dawn they sighted land, and by eleven o'clock they were so near +that they could see, shimmering in the heat of the midsummer sun, the +white beach of coral sand and the drooping palms that make all the +island of Nukapu green.[33] Looking out under their hands to the +island, the men aboard _The Southern Cross_ could see four great +canoes, with their sails set, hovering like hawks about the circling +reef which lay between them and the island. On the reef the blue waves +beat and broke into a gleaming line of cool white foam. + +The slight breeze was hardly strong enough to help the ship to make +the island. It was as though she knew the danger of that day and would +not carry Patteson and his men into the perils that lay hidden behind +the beauty of that island of Nukapu. + +Patteson knew the danger. He knew that, but a little time before their +visit, white men had come in a ship, had let down their boats and +rowed to the men of the island, had pretended to make friends, and +then, shooting some and capturing others, had sped back to the ship, +carrying off the captives to work for them on the island of Fiji. The +law of the savages of the islands was "Blood for blood." And to +them all white men belonged to one tribe. The peril that lay before +Patteson was that they might attack him in revenge for the foul crime +of those white traders. + +Just before noon the order was given to lower a boat from _The +Southern Cross_. Patteson went down into it, and sat in the stern, +while Mr. Atkin (his English helper), Stephen Taroniara, James Minipa, +and John Nonono came with him to row. The boat swung toward the +reef. Between the reef and the island lay two miles of the blue and +glittering lagoon. + +By the time the boat reached the reef six canoes full of warriors had +come together there. The tide was not high enough to float the boat +across the reef. The Nukapuan natives said they would haul the boat up +on to the reef, but the Bishop did not think it wise to consent. Then +two of the savages said to "Bisipi," as they called the Bishop: + +"Will you come into our canoe?" + +Without a moment's hesitation, knowing that confidence was the best +way to win them, he stepped into the canoe. As he entered they gave +him a basket with yams and other fruit in it. + +As the tide was low, the Bishop and the savages were obliged to wade +over the reef, dragging the canoe across to the deeper lagoon within. +The boat's crew of _The Southern Cross_ stopped in the outer sea, +drifting on the tide with the other four Nukapu canoes. They watched +the Bishop cross the lagoon in the canoe and land far off upon the +beach. Then he went from their sight. + +The brown men and the white man in the boat were trying to talk to the +islanders in the remaining canoes outside the reef, when suddenly a +savage jumped up in the nearest canoe, not ten yards from them, and +called out in his native language: + +"Have you anything like this?" + +He drew his bow to his ear and shot a yard arrow. His companions +in the other canoes leapt to their feet and sent showers of arrows +whizzing at the men in the boat, shouting as they aimed: + +"This for New Zealand man, this for Bernu man, this for Motu man." + +Pulling away with all their speed, Patteson's men were soon out of +range, but an arrow had nailed John Nonono's cap to his head. Stephen +lay in the bottom of the boat with six arrows in his chest and +shoulders. Mr. Atkin, the white man, had one in his left shoulder. + +They reached the ship and were helped on board. The arrow head was +drawn out from Mr. Atkin's shoulder, and was found to be made of a +sharpened human bone. No sooner was the arrow head out than Mr. Atkin +leapt back into the boat, insisting on going back to find Patteson. +He alone knew how and where the reef could be crossed on the tide that +was now rising. + +So they got a boat's crew from the ship, put a beaker full of water +and some food in the boat, and pulled toward the reef. + +At half-past four the tide was high enough to carry them across, and +they rowed over, looking through their glasses anxiously at the white +shore which was lined with brown figures. A canoe rowed out towards +them bringing another canoe in tow. As the boat went towards the +island, one canoe cast off the other, and went back; the second canoe +drifted towards them slowly on the still waters of the blue lagoon. + +As it came nearer they saw that in the middle of it lay Something +motionless, covered with matting. They pulled alongside, leaned over +the canoe, and lifted into their boat--the body of Patteson. The empty +canoe now drifted away. + +A yell went up from the savages on the shore. The boat was pulled +towards the ship and then the body lifted up and laid on the deck. It +had been rolled in the native matting as a shroud, tied at the head +and feet. They unrolled the mat, and there on the face of the dead +Bishop was still that wonderful, patient and winning smile, as of one +who at the moment when his head was beneath the uplifted club said, +"Lord, lay not this sin to their charge," and had then fallen asleep. + +There was a palm leaf fastened over his breast. In its long leaflets +five knots were made. On the body, in the head, the side, and the +legs were five wounds. And five men in Fiji were at work in the +plantations--men captured from Nukapu by brutal white traders. + +It was the vengeance of the savage--the call of "blood for blood"; and +the death of Patteson lies surely upon the head of those white traders +who carried death and captivity to the white coral shore of Nukapu. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[Footnote 32: Noo-k[)a]-poo.] + +[Footnote 33: Midsummer day on the Equator, September 21.] + + + + +CHAPTER XII + +THE BOY OF THE ADVENTUROUS HEART + +_Chalmers, the Boy_ + +(Born 1841, martyred 1901) + + +The rain had poured down in such torrents that even the hardy boys of +Inverary in Scotland had been driven indoors. Now the sky had cleared, +and the sun was shining again after the great storm. The boys were out +again, and a group of them were walking toward the little stream of +Aray which tumbled through the glen down to Loch Fyne. But the stream +was "little" no longer. + +As the boys came near to the place called "The Three Bridges," where +a rough wooden bridge crossed the torrent, they walked faster towards +the stream, for they could hear it roaring in a perfect flood which +shook the timbers of the bridge. The great rainfall was running from +the hills through a thousand streamlets into the main torrent. + +Suddenly there came a shout and a scream. A boy dashed toward them +saying that one of his schoolmates had fallen into the rushing water, +and that the full spate of the Aray was carrying him away down to the +sea. The boys stood horrified--all except one, who rushed forward, +pulling off his jacket as he ran, leapt down the bank to the lower +side of the bridge, and, clinging to the timber, held to it with one +arm while he stretched out the other as the drowning boy was being +carried under the bridge, seized him, and held him tightly with his +left hand. + +James Chalmers--the boy who had gone to the rescue--though only ten +years old, could swim. Letting go of the bridge, while still holding +the other boy with one arm, he allowed the current to carry them both +down to where the branches hung over the bank to the water's surface. +Seizing one of these, he dragged himself and the boy toward the bank, +whence he was helped to dry land by his friends. + +The boy whom young James Chalmers had saved belonged to a rival +school. Often the wild-blooded boys (like their fierce Highland +ancestors who fought clan against clan) had attacked the boys of this +school and had fought them. James, whose father was a stonemason and +whose mother was a Highland lassie born near Loch Lomond, was the +leader in these battles, but all the fighting was forgotten when he +heard that a boy was in danger of his life, and so he had plunged in +as swiftly to save him as he would have done for any boy from his own +school. + +We do not hear that James was clever at lessons in his school, but +when there was anything to be done, he had the quickest hand, the +keenest eye, the swiftest mind, and the most daring heart in all the +village. + +Though he loved the hills and glens and the mountain torrent, James, +above everything else, revelled in the sea. One day a little later on, +after the rescue of his friend from drowning, James stood on the +quay at Inverary gazing across the loch and watching the sails of the +fishing boats, when he heard a loud cry. + +He looked round. There, on the edge of the quay, stood a mother +wringing her hands and calling out that her child had fallen into the +water and was drowning. James ran along the quay, and taking off his +coat as he dashed to the spot, he dived into the water and, seizing +the little child by the dress, drew him ashore. The child seemed dead, +but when they laid him on the quayside, and moved his arms, his breath +began to come and go again and the colour returned to his cheeks. + +Twice Chalmers had saved others from drowning. Three times he himself, +as the result of his daring adventures in the sea, was carried home, +supposed to be dead by drowning. + +At another time he, with two other boys, thrust a tarred herring-box +into the sea from the sandy shore between the two rocky points where +the western sea came up the narrow Loch Fyne. + +"Look at James!" shouted one of the boys to his companions as Chalmers +leapt into the box. + +It almost turned over, and he swayed and rolled and then steadied as +the box swung out from the shore. + +The other boys, laughing and shouting, towed him and his boat through +the sea as they walked along the shore. Suddenly, as they talked, they +staggered forward. The cord had snapped and they fell on the sand, +still laughing, but when they stood up again the laughter died on +their lips. James was being swiftly carried out by the current to +sea--and in a tarred herring-box! He had no paddle, and his hands were +of no effect in trying to move the boat toward the shore. + +The boys shouted. There came an answering cry from the door of a +cottage in the village. A fisherman came swinging down the beach, +strode to his boat, took the two boys into it, and taking an oar +himself and giving the other to the two boys, they pulled out with the +tide. They reached James and rescued him just as the herring-box was +sinking. He went home to the little cottage where he lived, and his +mother gave him a proper thrashing. + +Some of James' schoolfellows used to go on Sundays to a school in +Inverary. He made up his mind to join them. The class met in the +vestry of the United Presbyterian Church there. After their lesson +they went together into the church to hear a closing address. Mr. +Meikle, the minister, who was also superintendent of the school, one +afternoon took from his pocket a magazine (a copy of the "Presbyterian +Record"). From this magazine he read a letter from a brave missionary +in the far-off cannibal islands of Fiji. The letter told of the savage +life there and of how, already, the story of Jesus was leading the men +no longer to drag their victims to the cannibal ovens, nor to pile +up the skulls of their enemies so as to show their own bravery. The +writer said they were beginning happier lives in which the awful +terror of the javelin and the club, and the horror of demons and +witches was gone. + +When Mr. Meikle had finished reading the magazine he folded it up +again and then looked round on all the boys in the school, saying: + +"I wonder if there is a boy here this afternoon who will become a +missionary, and by and by bring the Gospel to other such cannibals as +those?" + +Even as the minister said those words, the adventurous heart of young +Chalmers leapt in reply as he said to himself, "Yes, God helping me, I +will." + +He was just a freckled, dark-haired boy with hazel eyes, a boy +tingling with the joy of the open air and with the love of the heave +and flow of the sea. But when he made up his mind to do a thing, +however great the difficulties or dangers, James usually carried it +through. + +So it came about that some years later in 1866, having been trained +and accepted by the London Missionary Society, Chalmers, as a young +man, walked across the gangway to a fine new British-built clipper +ship. It had been christened _John Williams_ after the great hero +missionary[34] who gave up his life on the beach of Erromanga. + +This boy, who loved the sea and breathed deep with joy in the face of +adventure and peril, had set his face towards the deep, long breakers +of the far-off Pacific. He was going to carry to the South Seas the +story of the Hero and Saviour Whom he had learnt to love within the +sound of the Atlantic breakers that dashed and fretted against the +rocks of Western Scotland. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[Footnote 34: See Chapter VII.] + + + + +CHAPTER XIII + +THE SCOUT OF PAPUA[35] + +_Chalmers, the Friend_ + +(Date of Incident, about 1893) + + +The quick puffing of the steam launch _Miro_ was the only sound to +break the stillness of the mysterious Aivai[36] River. On the launch +were three white people--two men and a woman. They were the first who +had ever broken the silence of that stream. + +They gazed out under the morning sun along the dead level of the +Purari[37] delta, for they had left behind them the rolling breakers +of the Gulf of Papua in order to explore this dark river. Away to the +south rolled the blue waters between this vast island of New Guinea +and Northern Australia. + +They saw on either bank the wild tangle of twisted mangroves with +their roots higher than a man, twined together like writhing serpents. +They peered through the thick bush with its green leaves drooping down +to the very water's edge. But mostly they looked ahead over the bow of +the boat along the green-brown water that lay ahead of them, dappled +with sunlight under the trees. For they were facing an unknown +district where savage Papuans lived--as wild as hawks. They did not +know what adventure might meet them at the next bend of the river. + +"Splendid! Splendid!" cried one of the white men, a bearded giant +whose flashing eyes and mass of brown hair gave him the look of a +lion. "We will make it the white woman's peace. Bravo!" And he turned +to Mrs. Abel, whose face lit up with pleasure at his happy excitement. + +"No white man has even seen the people of Iala,"[38] said Tamate--for +that was the native name given to James Chalmers, the Scottish boy +who had now gone out to far-off Papua as a missionary.[39] "Iko +there"--and he pointed to a stalwart Papuan who stood by the +funnel--"is the only one of us who has seen them and can speak their +tongue. + +"It is dangerous for your wife to go among these people," he went on, +turning to Mr. Abel, "but she will help us more than anything else +possibly can to make friends." And Mr. Abel nodded, for he knew that +when the Papuans mean to fight they send their women and children +away; and that when they saw Mrs. Abel they would believe that the +white people came as friends and not enemies. + +As the steamer carried this scouting party against the swift current +up the river toward Iala, Tamate wanted to find how far up the river +the village lay. So he beckoned Iko to him. Tamate did not know a word +of the dialect which Iko spoke, but he had with him an old wrinkled +Papuan, who knew Iko's language, and who looked out with worshipping +eyes at the great white man who was his friend. So Tamate, wishing +to ask Iko how far away the village of Iala was, spoke first to old +Vaaburi,[40] and then Vaaburi asked Iko. + +Iko stretched out his dark forefinger, and made them understand that +that finger meant the length of their journey to Iala. Then with his +other hand he touched his forefinger under the second joint to show +how far they had travelled on their journey--not a third of the +distance. + +Hour after hour went by, as the steamer drove her way through the +swiftly running waters of Aivai. And ever Iko pointed further and +further up his finger until at last they had reached his claw-like +nail. By three o'clock the middle of the nail was reached. The eyes of +all looked anxiously ahead. At every curve of the river they strained +their sight to see if Iala were in view. How would these savage people +welcome the white men and woman in their snorting great canoe that had +no paddles, nor oars? There came a sharp bend in the river, and then +a long straight reach of water lying between the forest-covered banks. +Suddenly Iko called out, and Tamate and Mr. and Mrs. Abel peered +ahead. + +The great trees of the river nearly met above their heads, and only a +narrow strip of sky could be seen. + +There in the distance were the houses of Iala, close clustered on both +banks of the steaming river. They stood on piles of wood driven into +the mud, like houses on stilts, and their high-pointed bamboo roofs +stood out over the river like gigantic poke-bonnets. + +"Slow," shouted Tamate to the engineer. The _Miro_ slackened speed +till she just stemmed the running current and no more. + +"It will be a bit of a shock to them," said Tamate to his friends, +"to see this launch. We will give them time to get their wits together +again." + +Looking ahead through their glasses, the white men and Mrs. Abel could +see canoes swiftly crossing and re-crossing the river and men rushing +about. + +"Full speed ahead," cried Tamate again, and then after a few +revolutions of the engine, "Go slow. It will never do," he said, "to +drop amongst them while they are in that state. They will settle down +presently." And then, as he looked up at the sky between the waving +branches of the giant trees, "we have got a good two hours' daylight +yet," he said. + +Life and death to Tamate and his friends hung in the balance, for +they were three people unarmed, and here were dark savage warriors in +hundreds. Everything depended on his choosing just the right moment +for going into the midst of these people. So he watched them closely, +knitting his shaggy eyebrows together as he measured their state of +mind by their actions. He was the Scout of Christ in Papua, and he +must be watchful and note all those things that escape most men but +mean so much to trained eyes. Tamate seemed to have a strange gift +that made him able, even where other men could tell nothing, to say +exactly when it was, and when it was not, possible to go among a wild, +untouched tribe. + +Now the bewildered Ialan savages had grown quieter. Tamate called to +the engineer to drive ahead once more. Slowly the launch forged her +way through the running waters and drew nearer and nearer to the +centre of Iala. + +There on either side stood the houses in long rows stretching up the +river, and on the banks hundreds of men stood silent and as still as +trees. Their canoes lay half in and half out of the water ready for +instant launching. In each canoe stood its crew erect and waiting. All +the women and children had been sent away, for these men were out to +fight. They did not know whether this strange house upon the water +with the smoke coming from its chimney was the work of gods or devils. +Still they stood there to face the strange thing and, if need be, to +fight. + +Brown Iko stood in the bows of the _Miro_; near him stood Tamate. Then +the engine stopped and the anchor was dropped overboard. The savages +stood motionless. Not a weapon could be seen. The engineer, hearing +the anchor-chain rattle through the hole, blew the steam-whistle in +simple high spirits. As the shriek of the whistle echoed under +the arches of the trees, with the swiftness of lightning the Ialan +warriors swung their long bows from behind their bodies. Without +stooping each caught up an arrow that stood between his toes and with +one movement fixed it and pulled the bamboo strings of their black +bows till the notch of the arrows touched their ears. A hundred arrows +were aimed at the hearts of Tamate and Mr. and Mrs. Abel. + +Swiftly Iko stood upon the bulwark of the _Miro_, and shouted just one +word at the top of his voice. It was the Ialan word for "Peace." And +again he shouted it, and yet again "Peace, Peace!" + +Then he cried out "Pouta!"[41] It was the name of the chief of these +savages. They had but to let the arrows from their bows and all would +have been over. There was silence. What order would Pouta give? + +Then from the bank on their right came the sound of an answering +voice. In a flash every arrow was taken from its bow, and again not a +weapon was to be seen. + +Iko then called out again to Pouta, and Tamate told Iko what he was to +say to his friend, the savage chief. For some minutes the conversation +went on. At last Iko came to the point of asking for a canoe to take +them ashore. + +Chief Pouta hesitated. Then he gave his command, and a large canoe was +launched from the bank into the river and slowly paddled towards the +_Miro_. + +As the canoe came towards them, Tamate turned to Mrs. Abel, who had +stood there without flinching with all the arrows pointed toward the +boat; and he spoke words like these: "Your bravery is our strength. +Seeing you makes them believe that we come for peace. You give them +greater confidence in us than all our words." + +By this time the canoe had paddled alongside the launch. Tamate went +over the side first into the canoe, then Mrs. Abel, then Mr. Abel, +Iko, and Vaaburi. The canoe pushed off again and paddled toward the +landing place, where a crowd of Ialan savages filled every inch of +space. + +As soon as the bow of the canoe touched the bank, Tamate, without +hesitating a second, stepped out with Iko. Together they walked up to +the chief Pouta, and Tamate put his arms around him in an embrace of +peace. + +Pouta, standing on a high place, shouted to all his warriors. But none +of the white people knew a word of his meaning. + +Look where they would, in every direction, this white woman and the +two men were completely surrounded by an unbroken mass of wild and +armed savages, who stood gazing upon the strange apparitions in their +midst. + +Tamate, without a pause, perfectly calm, and showing no signs of fear, +spoke to Pouta and his men through old Vaaburi and Iko. + +"We have come," he said, "so that we may be friends. We have come +without weapons. We have brought with us a woman of our tribe, for +we come in peace. We are strangers. But we come with great things to +tell. Some day we will come again and will stay with you and will tell +you all our message. To-day we come only to make friends." + +Then Iko closed his eyes and prayed in the language of the people of +Iala. + +Turning to his friends when the prayer was over, Tamate said quietly: +"Now, we must get aboard as quickly as we possibly can. My plan for a +first visit is to come, make friends and get away again swiftly. When +we are gone they will talk to one another about us. Next time we come +we shall meet friends." + +So they walked down through an avenue of armed Papuans to the bank, +and got into the canoe again: the paddles flashed as she drove swiftly +through the water toward the launch. As they climbed her side, the +anchor was weighed, the _Miro_ swung round, her engines started, and, +carried down by the swift stream, she slipped past the packed masses +of silent men who lined the banks. + +It is a great thing to be a pathfinder through a country which no +man has penetrated before. But it is a greater thing to do as these +missionary-scouts did on their journey up the Aivai and find a path +of friendship into savage lives. To do that was the greatest joy in +Tamate's life. For he said, when he had spent many years in this work: + +"Recall the twenty-one years, give me back all its experiences, give +me its shipwrecks, give me its standings in the face of death, give +it me surrounded with savages with spears and clubs, give it me back +again with spears flying about me, with the club knocking me to the +ground, give it me back, and I will still be your missionary." + +FOOTNOTES: + +[Footnote 35: Pa-poo-[)a].] + +[Footnote 36: A-ee-v[)a]-ee.] + +[Footnote 37: Poo-r[)a]-ree.] + +[Footnote 38: Ee-[)a]-l[)a].] + +[Footnote 39: He had spent some sixteen years in the South Sea Island +of Rarotonga and had in 1877 become a pioneer among the cannibals of +Papua (New Guinea).] + +[Footnote 40: V[=a][=a]-boo-ree.] + +[Footnote 41: Poo-o-t[)a].] + + + + +CHAPTER XIV + +A SOUTH SEA SAMARITAN + +_Ruatoka_ (Date of Incident, about 1878) + + +It was a dark night and silent. The swish and lapping of the waters on +the Port Moresby beach on the southern shore of the immense island of +New Guinea, filled the air with a quiet hush of expectation. + +In a little white house sat a tall, dark man with his wife. The man +was Ruatoka. If you had asked "Who is Ruatoka?" of all the Papuans for +miles around Port Moresby, they would have wondered at your ignorance. +"Ruatoka," they would have told you, was a "Jesus man." He walked +among their villages, and did not fear them when they threatened him +with spears and clubs. He gave them medicines when they were ill, and +nursed them. He spoke strong words to them which made their hearts +turn to water within them when he showed that they did wrong. He often +stopped them from fighting. + +Ruatoka, with his wife, had sailed from the South Sea Islands with +Tamate,[42] who was to them their great hero. + +"My fathers of old were heathen, savage men on the island of Mangaia," +he would say. "The white men came to them and brought the story +of Jesus. Now we are happy. But we, too, must go to the men of New +Guinea, just as the white men came to us. To-day the New Guinea +Papuans are savage cannibals and heathen. To-morrow they will know +Jesus and be as happy as we are." + +So Ruatoka had been trained as a teacher and preacher as well as a +house-builder and carpenter; and his wife was taught how to teach +children as well as good housekeeping. + +This was the brown man, Ruatoka, who sat that night in his little +house at Port Moresby on the shore behind the great reef of Papua. +Suddenly there came a knock at his door. The door opened, and the +black, frightened faces of Papuans, with staring eyes, looked at him. + +"What is the matter?" he asked. + +And they told him that, as they came at sunset along the path from the +people of Larogi to Port Moresby, they found by the side of the path a +white man. "He was dying," they said. "We were afraid to touch him. If +we touched him and he died, his ghost would haunt us for evermore." + +Ruatoka stood up at once and reached for his lantern, and turning to +the men said: + +"Come and guide me to the place." + +They said, "No, we are afraid of the demon spirit. It is night. The +man will die. We are afraid of the spirits. We will not go." + +Ruatoka's father had told him when he was a boy how his own people in +the years before had dreaded the spirit-demons of Mangaia, but that +he must learn that there were no spirits to be dreaded; that one great +Father-Spirit ruled above all, and would take care of His children, +and that all those children must love one another. + +So Rua, as they called him, knowing that the white man who lay sick +by the roadside in the night, though of another colour, was yet a +brother, and knowing that no demon spirit could harm him in the dark, +lighted his lantern, poured water into a bottle, took a long piece of +cloth, folded it up, and started out under the stars. + +He walked for mile after mile up steep hills and down into valleys +along the path; but nothing did he hear save the cry of a night bird. +At last he had gone five miles, and was wondering whether he could +ever find the sick man (for the long grass towered up on either side +and all was still), when he heard a low moaning. Listening intently he +found the direction of the sound, and then moved towards it. He found +there, at the side of the path, a white man named Neville, nearly +dead. He was moaning with the pain of the fever, yet unconscious. + +Taking his bottle, Ruatoka poured a little water down the throat of +the man. He then took the long piece of cloth, wound it round Neville, +took the two ends in his hands, and stooping, he pulled and strained +with all his great strength, until at last Neville lay like a sack +upon his shoulders. Staggering along, Ruatoka climbed the hills that +rose 300 feet high. Again and again he was bound to rest, for the man +on his shoulders was as heavy as Ruatoka himself. He tottered down the +hill path, and at last, just as the first light of dawn was breaking +over the eastern hills, Ruatoka staggered into his home, laid the +sick man upon the only bed he had, and then himself laid down upon the +floor, wearied almost to death. There he slept while his wife nursed +and tended the fever-stricken Neville back to life. + + * * * * * + +Over a thousand years before that day Wilfrid[43] had brought life and +joy to the starving Saxons of the South coast of England. A hundred +years before that day white men, the great-great-grandchildren of +those Saxons, had started out in _The Duff_ and, sailing across the +world, had taken life and joy in the place of the terror of demons and +the death by the club to the men of the Islands of the Seas. + +Now Ruatoka, the South Sea islander, having in his heart the same +brave spirit of the Good Shepherd--that spirit of the Good Samaritan, +of help and preparedness, of courage and of chivalry, had carried life +and joy back to the North Sea islander, the Briton who had fallen by +the roadside in Papua. + +Ruatoka was a brown Greatheart. It was with him as it must be with all +brave sons who serve that great Captain, Jesus Christ: he wanted to be +in the front of the battle. When the great Tamate was killed and eaten +by the cannibals of Goaribari, Ruatoka wrote a letter to a missionary +who lived and still lives in Papua. This is the end of the letter: + +"Hear my wish. It is a great wish. The remainder of my strength I +would spend in the place where Tamate was killed. In that village I +would live. In that place where they killed men, Jesus Christ's name +and His word I would teach to the people that they may become Jesus' +children. My wish is just this. You know it. I have spoken. + + RUATOKA." + +FOOTNOTES: + +[Footnote 42: James Chalmers: see Chapter XIII.] + +[Footnote 43: See Chapter II.] + + + + +Book Three: THE PATHFINDERS OF AFRICA + + + + +CHAPTER XV + +THE MAN WHO WOULD GO ON + +_David Livingstone_ + +(Dates born 1813, died 1873) + + +There was a deathly stillness in the hot African air as two bronzed +Scots strode along the narrow forest path. + +The one, a young, keen-eyed doctor,[44] glanced quickly through the +trees and occasionally turned aside to pick some strange orchid and to +slip it into his collecting case. The other strode steadily along +with that curious, "resolute forward tread" of his.[45] He was David +Livingstone. Behind them came a string of African bearers carrying in +bundles on their heads the tents and food of the explorers. + +Suddenly, with a crunch, Livingstone's heel went through a white +object half hidden in the long grass--a thing like an ostrich's egg. +He stooped--and his strong, bronzed face was twisted with mingled +sorrow and anger, as, looking into the face of his younger friend, he +gritted out between his clenched teeth, "The slave-raiders again!" + +It was the whitening skull of an African boy. + +For weeks those two Britons had driven their little steamer (the +_Asthmatic_ they called her, because of her wheezing engines) up the +Zambesi river and were now exploring its tributary the Shiré. + +Each morning, before they could start the ship's engines, they had +been obliged to take poles and push from between the paddles of the +wheels the dead bodies of Africans--men, women, and children--slain +bodies which had floated down from the villages that the Arab +slave-raiders had burned and sacked. Livingstone was out on the long, +bloody trail of the slaver, the trail that stretched on and on into +the heart of Africa where no white man had ever been. + +This negro boy's skull, whitening on the path, was only one more +link in the long, sickening shackle-chain of slavery that girdled +down-trodden Africa. + +The two men strode on. The forest path opened out to a broad clearing. +They were in an African village. But no voice was heard and no step +broke the horrible silence. It was a village of death. The sun blazed +on the charred heaps which now marked the sites of happy African +homes; the gardens were desolate and utterly destroyed. The village +was wiped out. Those who had submitted were far away, trudging through +the forest, under the lash of the slaver; those who had been too old +to walk or too brave to be taken without fight were slain. + +The heart of Livingstone burned with one great resolve--he would track +this foul thing into the very heart of Africa and then blazon its +horrors to the whole world. + +The two men trudged back to the river bank again. Now, with their +brown companions, they took the shallow boat that they had brought +on the deck of the _Asthmatic_, and headed still farther up the Shiré +river from the Zambesi toward the unknown Highlands of Central Africa. + + +_Facing Spears and Arrows_ + +Only the sing-song chant of the Africans as they swung their paddles, +and the frightened shriek of a glittering parrot, broke the stillness +as the boat pushed northward against the river current. + +The paddles flashed again, and as the boat came round a curve in the +river they were faced by a sight that made every man sit, paddle in +hand, motionless with horror. The bank facing them in the next curve +of the river was black with men. The ranks of savages bristled with +spears and arrows. A chief yelled to them to turn back. Then a cloud +of arrows flew over the boat. + +"Go on," said Livingstone quietly to the Africans. Their paddles took +the water and the boat leapt toward the savage semi-circle on the +bank. The water was shallower now. Before any one realised what was +happening Livingstone had swung over the edge of the boat and, up to +his waist in water, was wading ashore with his arms above his head. + +"It is peace!" he called out, and waded on toward the barbs of a +hundred arrows and spears. The men in the boat sat breathless, waiting +to see their leader fall with a score of spears through his body. +But the savages on the bank were transfixed with amazement at +Livingstone's sheer audacity. Awed by something god-like in this +unflinching and unarmed courage, no finger let fly a single arrow. + +"You think," he called to the chief, "that I am a slave-raider." For +Livingstone knew that he had never in all his wanderings been attacked +by Africans save where they had first been infuriated by the cruel +raiders. + +The chief scowled. + +"See," cried Livingstone, baring his arm to show his white skin as +he again and again had done when threatened by Africans, "is this the +colour of the men who come to make slaves and to kill?" + +The savages gazed with astonishment. They had never before seen so +white a skin. + +"No," Livingstone went on, "this is the skin of the tribe that has +heart toward the African." + +Almost unconsciously the man had dropped the spear points and arrow +heads as he was speaking. The chief listened while Livingstone, who +was now on the bank, told the savages how he had come across the great +waters from a far-off land with a message of peace and goodwill. + +Unarmed and with a dauntless heroism the "white man who would go on" +had won a great victory over that tribe. He now passed on in his boat +up the river and over rapids toward the wonderful shining Highlands in +the heart of Africa. + + +_"Deliverance to the Captives"_ + +Dr. Kirk was recalled to England by the British Government; but +Livingstone trudged on in increasing loneliness over mountains and +across rivers and lakes, plunging through marshes, racked a score of +times with fever, robbed of his medicines, threatened again and again +by the guns of the slave-raiding Arabs and the spears and clubs of +savage head-hunters, bearing on his bent shoulders the Cross of the +negroes' agony--slavery, till at last, alone and on his knees in +the dead of night, our Greatheart crossed his last River, into the +presence of his Father in heaven. + +Yet still, though his body was dead, his spirit would go on. For the +life Livingstone lived, the death he died, and the record he wrote +of the slave-raiders' horrible cruelties thrilled all Britain to heal +that "open sore of the world." Queen Victoria made Dr. Kirk her consul +at Zanzibar, and told him to make the Sultan of Zanzibar order all +slave-trading through that great market to cease. And to-day, because +of David Livingstone, through all the thousands of miles of Africa +over which he trod, no man dare lay the shackles of slavery on +another. To-day, where Livingstone saw the slave-market in Zanzibar, +a grand church stands, built by negro hands, and in that cathedral you +may hear the negro clergy reading such words as-- + + "The voice of one crying in the wilderness, + Prepare ye the way of the Lord, + Make His paths straight," + +and African boys singing in their own tongue words that sum up the +whole life of David Livingstone. + + "He hath sent me to heal the broken-hearted, + To preach deliverance to the captives." + +FOOTNOTES: + +[Footnote 44: Dr Kirk, now Sir John Kirk, G.C.M.G., who, leaning upon +his African ebony stick and gazing with his now dimmed eyes into +the glow of the fire, told me many stories of his adventures with +Livingstone on his Zambesi journeyings, including this one. See next +chapter.] + +[Footnote 45: A friend of mine asked a very old African in +Matabeleland whether--as a boy--he remembered Dr. Livingstone. "Oh, +yes," replied the aged Matabele, "he came into our village out of +the bush walking thus," and the old man got up and stumped along, +imitating the determined tread of Livingstone, which, after sixty +years, was the one thing he remembered.] + + + + +CHAPTER XVI + +THE BLACK PRINCE OF AFRICA + +_Khama_ + +(Dates 1850--the present day) + + +One day men came running into a village in South Africa to say that +a strange man, whose body was covered with clothes and whose face +was not black, was walking toward their homes. He was coming from the +South. + +Never before had such a man been seen in their tribe. So there was +great excitement and a mighty chattering went through the round wattle +of mud huts with their circular thatched roofs. + +The African Chief, Sekhome--who was the head of this Bamangwato tribe +and who was also a noted witch-doctor--started out along the southward +trail to meet the white man. By his side ran his eldest son. He was a +lithe, blithe boy; his chocolate coloured skin shone and the muscles +rippled as he trotted along. He was so swift that his name was the +name of the antelope that gallops across the veldt. Cama is what the +Bamangwato call the antelope. Khama is how we spell the boy's name. + +He gazed in wonder as he saw a sturdy man wearing clothes such as he +had not seen before--what we call coat and hat, trousers and boots. +He looked into the bronzed face of the white man and saw that his eyes +and mouth were kind. Together they walked back into the village. Chief +Sekhome found that the white man's name was David Livingstone; and +that he was a kind doctor who could make boys and men better when they +were ill, with medicines out of a black japanned box. + +When evening came the boy Khama saw the strange white man open another +box and take out a curious thing which seemed to open yet was full of +hundreds and hundreds of leaves. Khama had never seen such a thing +in his life and he could not understand why Livingstone opened it +and kept looking at it for a long time, for he had never seen a book +before and did not even know what letters were or what reading was. + +It seemed wonderful to him when he heard that that book could speak +to Livingstone without making any sound and that it told him about +the One Infinite, Holy, Loving God, Who is Father of all men, black or +brown or white, and Whose Son, Jesus Christ, came to teach us all to +love God and to love one another. For the book was the Bible which +Livingstone all through his heroic exploring of Africa read each day. + +So Livingstone passed on from the village; but this boy Khama never +forgot him, and in time--as we shall see--other white men came and +taught Khama himself to read that same book and worship that same God. + + +_The Fight with the Lion_ + +Meanwhile strange adventures came to the growing young Khama. This is +the story of some of them: + +The leaping flames of a hunting camp-fire threw upon the dark +background of thorn trees weird shadows of the men who squatted in a +circle on the ground, talking. + +The men were all Africans, the picked hunters from the tribe of the +Bamangwato. They were out on the spoor of a great lion that had made +himself the terror of the tribe. Night after night the lion had leapt +among their oxen and had slain the choicest in the chief's herds. +Again and again the hunters had gone out on the trail of the ferocious +beast; but always they returned empty-handed, though boasting loudly +of what they would do when they should face the lion. + +"To-morrow, yes, to-morrow," cried a young Bamangwato hunter rolling +his eyes, "I will slay _tau e bogale_--the fierce lion." + +The voices of the men rose on the night air as the whole group +declared that the beast should ravage their herds no more--the whole +group, except one. This young man's tense face and the keen eyes that +glowed in the firelight showed his contempt for those who swaggered so +much and did so little. He was Khama, the son of Sekhome, the chief. +The wild flames gleamed on him as he stood there, full six feet of +tireless manhood leaning on his gun, like a superb statue carved in +ebony. Those swift, spare limbs of his, that could keep pace with a +galloping horse, gave him the right to his name, Khama--the Antelope. + +The voices dropped, and the men, rolling themselves in the skins of +wild beasts, lay down and slept--all except one, whose eyes watched in +the darkness as sleeplessly as the stars. When they were asleep Khama +took up his gun and went out into the starry night. + +The night passed. As the first flush of dawn paled the stars, and +the men around the cold ashes of the fire sat up, they gazed in +awed amazement. For they saw, striding toward them, their tall young +chieftain; and over his shoulders hung the tawny skin and mane of a +full-grown king lion. Alone in the night he had slain the terror of +the tribe! + +The men who had boasted of what they meant to do and had never +performed, never heard Khama--either at that time or later--make any +mention of this great feat. + +It was no wonder that the great Bamangwato tribe looked at the tall, +silent, resolute young chieftain and, comparing him with his crafty +father Sekhome and his treacherous, cowardly younger brother Khamane, +said, "Khama is our _boikanyo_--our confidence." + + +_The Fight with the Witch-doctors_ + +The years went by; and that fierce old villain Sekhome plotted and +laid ambush against the life of his valiant son, Khama. Men who +followed David Livingstone into Africa had come as missionaries to +his tribe and had taught him the story of Jesus and given him the +knowledge of reading and writing. So Khama had become a Christian, +though Sekhome his father was still a heathen witch-doctor. Khama +would have nothing to do with the horrible ceremonies by which the +boys of the tribe were initiated into manhood; nor would he look on +the heathen rain-making incantations, though his father smoked with +anger against him. Under a thousand insults and threats of death Khama +stood silent, never insulting nor answering again, and always treating +with respect his unnatural father. + +"You, as the son of a great chief, must marry other wives," said +old Sekhome, whose wives could not be numbered. Young Khama firmly +refused, for the Word of God which ruled his life told him that he +must have but one wife. Sekhome foamed with futile rage. + +"You must call in the rain-doctors to make rain," said Sekhome, as +the parched earth cracked under the flaming sun. Khama knew that their +wild incantations had no power to make rain, but that God alone ruled +the heavens. So he refused. + +Sekhome now made his last and most fearful attack. He was a +witch-doctor and master of the witch-doctors whose ghoulish +incantations made the Bamangwato tremble in terror of unseen devils. + +One night the persecuted Khama woke at the sound of strange clashing +and chanting. Looking out he saw the fitful flame of a fire. Going out +from his hut, he saw the _lolwapa_ or court in front of it lit up +with weird flames round which the black wizards danced with horns and +lions' teeth clashing about their necks, and with manes of beasts' +hair waving above their horrible faces. As they danced they cast +charms into the fire and chanted loathsome spells and terrible curses +on Khama. As a boy he had been taught that these witch-doctors had the +power to slay or to smite with foul diseases. He would have been more +than human if he had not felt a shiver of nameless dread at this lurid +and horrible dance of death. + +Yet he never hesitated. He strode forward swiftly, anger and contempt +on his face, scattering the witch-doctors from his path and leaping +full upon their fire of charms, stamped it out and scattered its +embers broadcast. The wizards fled into the darkness of the night. + + +_The Fight with the Kaffir Beer_ + +At last Khama's treacherous old father, Sekhome, died. Khama was +acclaimed the supreme chief of all the Bamangwato.[46] He galloped out +at the head of his horsemen to pursue Lobengula, the ferocious chief +of the Matabele who had struck fear into the Bamangwato for many +years. Even Lobengula, who to his dying day carried in his neck a +bullet from Khama's gun, said of him, "The Bamangwato are dogs, but +Khama is a man." + +Khama had now freed his people from the terror of the lion, the +tyranny of witch-doctors, and the dread of the Matabele. Yet the +deadliest enemy of Khama and the most loathsome tyrant of the +Bamangwato was still in power,--the strong drink which degrades the +African to unspeakable depths. + +Even as Khama charged at the head of his men into the breaking ranks +of the Matabele, his younger brother, Khamane, whom he had put in +charge of his city in his absence, said to the people: "You may brew +beer again now." Many of the people did not obey, but others took the +corn of the tribe and brewed beer from it. + +At night the cries of beaten women rose, and the weird chants of +incantations and of foul unclean dances were heard. Khamane called the +older men together around his fire. Pots of beer passed from hand to +hand. As the men grew fuddled they became bolder and more boastful. +Khamane then spoke to them and said, "Why should Khama rule you? +Remember he forbids you to make and to drink beer. He has done away +with the dances of the young men. He will not let you make charms or +throw enchanted dice or make incantations for rain. He is a Christian. +If I ruled you, you should do all these things." + +When Khama rode back again into his town he saw men and women lying +drunk under the eaves of their huts and others reeling along the road. +At night the sounds of chants and drinking dances rose on the air. + +His anger was terrible. For once he lost his temper. He seized a +burning torch and running to the hut of Khamane set fire to the roof +and burned the house down over his drunken brother's head. He ordered +all the beer that had been brewed to be seized, and poured it out +upon the veldt. He knew that he was fighting a fiercer enemy than +the Matabele, a foe that would throttle his tribe and destroy all his +people if he did not conquer it. The old men of the tribe muttered +against him and plotted his death. He met them face to face. His eyes +flashed. + +"When I was still a lad," he said, "I used to think how I would +govern my town and what kind of a kingdom it should be. One thing I +determined, I would not rule over a drunken town or people. I WILL NOT +HAVE DRINK IN THIS TOWN. If you must have it you must go." + + +_The Fight with the White Man's "Fire-water"_ + +Khama had conquered for the moment. But white men, Englishmen, came +to the town. They set up stores. And in the stores they began to sell +brandy from large casks. + +The drinking of spirits has more terrible effects on the African than +even on white men. Once he starts drinking, the African cannot +stop and is turned into a sot. The ships of the white man have been +responsible to a terrible extent for sending out the "fire-water" to +Africa. + +Khama called the white traders in the tribe together. + +"It is my desire," he said, "that no strong drink shall be sold in my +town." + +"We will not bring the great casks of brandy," they replied, "but +we hope you will allow us to have cases of bottles as they are for +medicine." + +"I consent," said Khama, "but there must be no drunkenness." + +"Certainly," the white men replied, "there shall be no drunkenness." + +In a few days one of the white traders had locked himself into his +house in drunken delirium, naked and raving. Morning after morning +Khama rose before daybreak to try and get to the man when he was +sober, but all the time he was drunk. Then one morning this man +gathered other white men together in a house and they sat drinking and +then started fighting one another. + +A boy ran to Khama to tell him. The chief went to the house and strode +in. The room was a wreck. The men lay senseless with their white +shirts stained with blood. + +Khama with set, stern face turned and walked to the house where he +often went for counsel, the home of his friend, Mr. Hepburn, the +missionary. Mr. Hepburn lay ill with fever. Khama told him what the +white men had done. Hepburn burned with shame and anger that his own +fellow-countrymen should so disgrace themselves. Ill as he was he rose +and went out with the chief and saw with his own eyes that it was as +Khama said. + +"I will clear them all out of my town," cried the chief. + +It was Saturday night. + + +_Khama's Decisive Hour_ + +On the Monday morning Khama sent word to all the white men to come +to him. It was a cold, dreary day. The chief sat waiting in the +_Kgotla_[47] while the white men came together before him. Hepburn, +the missionary, sat by his side. Those who knew Khama saw as soon as +they looked into his grim face that no will on earth could turn him +from his decisions that day. + +"You white men,"[48] he said to them sternly, "have insulted and +despised me in my own town because I am a black man. If you despise us +black men, what do you want here in the country that God has given to +us? Go back to your own country." + +His voice became hard with a tragic sternness. + +"I am trying," he went on, "to lead my people to act according to +the word of God which we have received from you white people, and yet +_you_ show them an example of wickedness such as we never knew. You," +and his voice rose in burning scorn, "you, the people of the word +of God! You know that some of my own brothers"--he was referring to +Khamane especially--"have learned to like the drink, and you know that +I do not want them to see it even, that they may forget the habit. Yet +you not only bring it in and offer it to them, but you try to tempt +_me_ with it. + +"I make an end of it to-day. Go! Take your cattle and leave my town +and _never come back again_!" + +No man moved or spoke. They were utterly shamed and bewildered. Then +one white man, who had lived in the town since he was a lad, pleaded +with Khama for pity as an old friend. + +"You," said the chief with biting irony, "my friend? You--the +ringleader of those who despise my laws. You are my worst enemy. You +pray for pity? No! for you I have no pity. It is my duty to have pity +on my people over whom God placed me, and I am going to show them pity +to-day; and that is my duty to them and to God.... Go!" + +And they all went. + +Then the chief ordered in his young warriors and huntsmen. + +"No one of you," he said, "is to drink beer." Then he called a great +meeting of the whole town. In serried masses thousand upon thousand +the Bamangwato faced their great chief. He lifted up his voice: + +"I, Khama, your chief, order that you shall not make beer. You take +the corn that God has given to us in answer to our prayers and you +destroy it. Nay, you not only destroy it, but you make stuff with it +that causes mischief among you." + +There was some murmuring. + +His eyes flashed like steel. + +"You can kill me," he said, "but you cannot conquer me." + + * * * * * + + +_The Black Prince of Eighty_ + +If you rode as a guest toward Khama's town over seventy years after +those far-off days when Livingstone first went there, as you came in +sight of the great stone church that the chief has built, you would +see tearing across the African plain a whirlwind of dust. It would +race toward you, with the soft thunder of hoofs in the loose soil. +When the horses were almost upon you--with a hand of steel--chief +Khama would rein in his charger and his bodyguard would pull up behind +him. + +Over eighty years old, grey and wrinkled, he would spring from his +horse, without help, to greet you--still Khama, the Antelope. Old +as he is, he is as alert as ever. He heard that a great all Africa +aeroplane route was planned after the Great War. At once he offered +to make a great aerodrome, and the day at last came when +Khama--eighty-five years old--who had seen Livingstone, the first +white man to visit his tribe--stood watching the first aeroplane come +bringing a young officer from the clouds. + +He stands there, the splendid chief of the Bamangwato--"steel-true, +blade-straight." He is the Black Prince of Africa--who has indeed won +his spurs against the enemies of his people. + +And if you were to ask him the secret of the power by which he has +done these things, Khama the silent, who is not used to boasting, +would no doubt lead you at dawn to the _Kgotla_ before his huts. There +at every sunrise he gathers his people together for their morning +prayers at the feet of the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the +Captain and King of our Great Crusade for the saving of Africa. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[Footnote 46: In 1875.] + +[Footnote 47: The chiefs open-air enclosure for official meetings.] + +[Footnote 48: These are Khama's own words taken down at the time by +Hepburn.] + + + + +CHAPTER XVII + +THE KNIGHT OF THE SLAVE GIRLS + +_George Grenfell_ + +(Dates, b. 1849, d. 1906) + + +_The Building of the Steamship_ + +When David Livingstone lay dying in his hastily-built hut, in the +heart of Africa, with his black companions Susi and Chumah attending +him, almost his last words were, "How far away is the Luapula?" + +He knew that the river to which the Africans gave that name was only +a short distance away and that it flowed northward. He thought that it +might be the upper reaches of the Nile, which had been sought by men +through thousands of years, but which none had ever explored. + +Livingstone died in that hut (1873) and never knew what Stanley, +following in his footsteps, discovered later (1876-7), viz., that the +Luapula was really the upper stretch of the Congo, the second largest +river in the world (3000 miles long), flowing into the Atlantic. The +basin of the Congo would cover the whole of Europe from the Black Sea +to the English Channel. + +In the year when Livingstone died, and before Stanley started to +explore the Congo, a young man, who had been thrilled by reading the +travels of Livingstone, sailed to the West Coast of Africa to the +Kameruns. + +His name was George Grenfell, a Cornish boy (born at Sancreed, four +miles from Penzance, in England), who was brought up in Birmingham. +He was apprenticed at fifteen to a firm of hardware and machinery +dealers. Here he picked up, as a lad, some knowledge of machinery that +helped him later on the Congo. He had been thrilled to meet at Bristol +College, where he was trained for his missionary work, a thin, worn, +heroic man of tried steel, Alfred Saker, the great Kamerun missionary, +and Grenfell leapt for joy to go out to the dangerous West Coast of +Africa, where he worked hard, teaching the Africans to make tables and +bricks and to print and read, healing them and preaching to them. + +When Stanley came down the Congo to the sea and electrified the world +by the story of the great river, Grenfell and the Baptist Missionary +Society which he served conceived the daring and splendid plan of +starting a chain of mission stations right from the mouth of the +Congo eastward across Africa. In 1878 Grenfell was on his way up the +river--travelling along narrow paths flanked by grass often fifteen +feet high, and crossing swamps and rivers, till after thirteen +attempts and in eighteen months he reached Stanley Pool, February +1881. A thousand miles of river lay between Stanley Pool and Stanley +Falls, and even above Stanley Falls lay thirteen hundred miles of +navigable river. Canoes were perilous. Hippopotami upset them, and men +were dragged down and eaten by crocodiles. They must have a steamer +right up there beyond the Falls in the very heart of Africa. + +Grenfell went home to England, and the steamer _Peace_ was built on +the Thames, Grenfell watching everything being made from the crank +to the funnel. She was built, launched, and tried on the Thames; then +taken to pieces and packed in 800 packages, weighing 65 lbs. each, +and taken to the mouth of the Congo. On the heads and shoulders of +a thousand men the whole ship and the food of the party were carried +past the rapids, over a thousand miles along narrow paths, in peril of +snakes and leopards and enemy savages, over streams crossed by bridges +of vine-creepers, through swamps, across ravines. + +Grenfell's engineer, who was to have put the ship together, died. At +last they reached Stanley Pool. Grenfell with eight negroes started +to try to build the ship. It was a tremendous task. Grenfell said +the _Peace_ was "prayed together." It was prayer and hard work and +gumption. At last the ship was launched, steam was up, the _Peace_ +began to move. "She lives, master, she lives!" shouted the excited +Africans. + +A thousand thrilling adventures came to him as he steamed up and +down the river, teaching and preaching, often in the face of +poisoned arrows and spears. We are now going to hear the story of one +adventure. + +_The Steamer's Journey_ + +The crocodiles drowsily dosing in the slime of the Congo river bank +stirred uneasily as a strange sound broke the silence of the blazing +African morning. They lifted their heavy jaws and swung their heads +down stream. Their beady eyes caught sight of a Thing mightier than a +thousand crocodiles. It was pushing its way slowly up stream. + +The sound was the throb of the screw of the steamer from whose funnel +a light ribbon of smoke floated across the river. An awning shaded the +whole deck from bow to stern. On the top of the awning, under a little +square canopy, stood a tall young negro; the muscles in his sturdy +arms and his broad shoulders rippled under his dark skin as the wheel +swung round in his swift, strong hands. + +The steamer drove up stream while the crocodiles, startled by the wash +of the boat, slid sullenly down the bank and dived. + +A short, bearded man, dressed in white duck, stood on deck at the +bows, where the steamer's name, _Peace_, was painted. He was George +Grenfell. His keen eyes gleamed through the spectacles that rested on +his strong, arched nose. By his side stood his wife, looking out up +the river. They were searching for the landing-place and the hut-roofs +of some friendly river-side town. + +At last as the bows swung round the next bend in the river they saw +a village. The Africans rushed to the bank and hurriedly pushed out +their tree-trunk canoes. Grenfell shouted an order. A bell rang. The +screw stopped and the steamer lay-to while he climbed down into the +ship's canoe and was paddled ashore. The wondering people pushed and +jostled around them to see this strange man with his white face. + + +_The Slave Girls_ + +As they walked up among the huts, speaking with the men of the town, +Grenfell came to an open space. As his quick eyes looked about he saw +two little girls standing bound with cords. They were tethered +like goats to a stake. Their little faces and round eyes looked all +forlorn. Even the wonder of the strange bearded white man hardly kept +back the tears that filled their eyes. + +"What are these?" he asked, turning to the chief. + +The African pointed up the river. Grenfell's heart burned in him, +as the chief told how he and his men had swept up the river in their +canoes armed with their spears and bows and arrows and had raided +another tribe. + +"And these," said the chief, pointing to the girls, who began +to wonder what was going to happen, "these are two girls that we +captured. They are some of our booty. They are slaves. They are tied +there till someone will come and buy them." + +Grenfell could not resist the silent call of their woeful faces. +Quickly he gave beads and cloth to the chief, and took the little +girls back with him down to the river bank. As they jumped into the +canoe to go aboard the S.S. _Peace_, the two girls wondered what this +strange new master would do with them. Would he be cruel? Yet his eyes +looked kind through those funny, round, shining things balanced on his +nose. + +The girls at once forgot all their sorrows when they jumped on board +this wonderful river monster. They felt it shiver and throb and begin +to move. The bank went farther and farther away. The _Peace_ had again +started up stream. + +The girls stood in wonder and gazed with open eyes as the banks slid +past. They saw the birds all green and red flashing along the surface +of the water, and the huge hippopotami sullenly plunging into the +river like the floating islands of earth that sail down the Congo. +Their quick eyes noted the quaint iguana, like giant lizards, sunning +themselves on the branches of the trees over the stream and then +dropping like stones into the stream as the steamer passed. + + +_The Slave Girl's Brother_ + +Then, suddenly, as they came round a bend in the river, all was +changed. There ahead Grenfell saw a river town. The canoes were being +manned rapidly by warriors. The bank bristled with spears in the hands +of ferocious savages, whose faces were made horrible by gashes and +loathsome tattooing. In each canoe men stood with bows in their hands +and arrows drawn to the head. The throb of the engines ceased. The +ship slowed up. But the canoes came on. + +The men of this Congo town only knew one thing. Enemies had, only a +few weeks earlier, come from down-river, had raided their town, +burned their huts, killed many of their braves, and carried away their +children. Here were men who had also come from down the river. They +must, therefore, be enemies. + +Their chief shouted an order. In an instant a score of spears hurtled +at the ship and rattled on the steel screens around the deck. The yell +of the battle-cry of the tribe echoed and re-echoed down the river. + +Grenfell was standing by the little girls. Suddenly one of them with +dancing eyes shouted and waved her arms. + +"What is it?" cried Grenfell to her. + +"See--see!" she cried, pointing to a warrior in a canoe who was just +poising a spear, "that is my brother! That is my brother! This is my +town!" + +"Call to him," said Grenfell. + +Her thin childish voice rang out. But no one heard it among the +warriors. Again she cried out to her brother. The only answer was a +hail of spears and arrows. + +Grenfell turned rapidly and shouted an order to the engineer. +Instantly a shriek, more wild and piercing than the combined yells +of the whole tribe, rent the air. Again the shriek went up. The +warriors stood transfixed with spear and arrow in hand like statues +in ebony. There was a moment's intense and awful silence. They had +never before heard the whistle of a steamer! + +"Shout again--quickly," whispered Grenfell to the little African +girl. + +In a second the child's shrill voice rang out in the silence across +the water, crying first her brother's name, and then her own. + +The astonished warrior dropped his spear, caught up his paddle +and--in a few swift strokes--drove his canoe towards the steamer. His +astonishment at seeing his sister aboard overcame all his dread of +this shrieking, floating island that moved without sails or paddles. + +Quickly she told her story of how the strange white man in the great +canoe that smoked had found her in the village of their enemies, had +saved her from slavery, and--now, had brought her safely home again. +The story passed from lip to lip. Every spear and bow and arrow was +dropped. + +The girls were quickly put ashore, and as Grenfell walked up the +village street every warrior who had but a few moments before been +seeking his blood was now gazing at this strange friend who had +brought back to the tribe the daughters whom they thought they had +lost for ever. + + Grenfell went on with his work in face of fever, inter-tribal + fighting, slave-raiders, the horrors of wife and slave-slaughter + at funerals, witch-killing--and in some ways worse still, the + horrible cruelties of the Belgian rubber-traders--for over a + quarter of a century. + + In June 1906, accompanied by his negro companions, he lay at + Yalemba, sick with fever. Two of the Africans wrote a letter for + help to other missionaries: + + "We are very sorrow," they wrote, "because out Master is very + sick. So now we beging you one of you let him come to help Mr + Grenfell please. We think now is near to die, but we don't know + how to do with him. Yours, + + DISASI MAKULO, + MASCOO LUVUSU." + + To-day all up the fifteen hundred miles of Congo waterway the + power of the work done by Grenfell and the men who came with him + and after him has changed all the life. Gone are the slave-raiders, + the inter-tribal wars, the cruelties of the white men, along that + line. There stand instead negroes who cap make bricks, build + houses, turn a lathe; engineers, printers, bookbinders, + blacksmiths, carpenters, worshipping in churches built with their + own hands. But beyond, and among the myriad tributaries and the + vast forests millions of men have never yet even heard of the love + of God in Jesus Christ, and still work their hideous cruelties. + + So Grenfell, like Livingstone, opened a door. It stands open. + + + + +CHAPTER XVIII + +"A MAN WHO CAN TURN HIS HAND TO ANYTHING" + +_Alexander Mackay_ + +(Dates 1863-1876) + + +The inquisitive village folk stared over their garden gates at Mr. +Mackay, the minister of the Free Kirk of Rhynie, a small Aberdeenshire +village, as he stood with his thirteen-year-old boy gazing into the +road at their feet. The father was apparently scratching at the stones +and dust with his stick. The villagers shook their heads. + +"Fat's the minister glowerin' at, wi' his loon Alic, among the stoor +o' the turnpike?"[49] asked the villagers of one another. + +The minister certainly was powerful in the pulpit, but his ways were +more than they could understand. He was for ever hammering at the +rocks on the moor and lugging ugly lumps of useless stone homeward, +containing "fossils" as he called them. + +Now Mr. Mackay was standing looking as though he were trying to find +something that he had lost in the road. If they had been near enough +to Alec and his father they would have heard words like these: + +"You see, Alec, this is the Zambesi River running down from the heart +of Africa into the Indian Ocean, and here running into the Zambesi +from the north is a tributary, the Shiré. Livingstone going up that +river found wild savages who ..." + +So the father was tracing in the dust of the road with the point +of his stick the course of the Zambesi which Livingstone had just +explored for the first time. + +On these walks with his father Alec, with his blue eyes wide open, +used to listen to stories like the Yarn we have read of the marvellous +adventures of Livingstone.[50] Sometimes Mr. Mackay would stop and +draw triangles and circles with his stick. Then Alec would be learning +a problem in Euclid on this strange "blackboard" of the road. He +learned the Euclid--but he preferred the Zambesi and Livingstone! + +One day Alec was off by himself trudging down the road with a fixed +purpose in his mind, a purpose that seemed to have nothing in the +world to do with either Africa or Euclid. He marched away from his +little village of Rhynie, where the burn runs around the foot of +the great granite mountain across the strath. He trudged on for four +miles. Then he heard a shrill whistle. Would he be late after all? +He ran swiftly toward the little railway station. A ribbon of smoke +showed over the cutting, away to the right. Alec entered the station +and ran to one end of the platform as the train slowed down and the +engine stopped just opposite where he stood. + +He gazed at the driver and his mate on the footplate. He followed +every movement as the driver came round the engine with his long-nosed +oil-can, and opened and shut small brass lids and felt the bearings +with his hand to see whether they were hot. The guard waved his green +flag. The whistle of the engine shrieked, and the train steamed out of +the station along the burnside toward Huntly. Alec gazed down the line +till the train was out of sight and then, turning, left the station +and trudged homeward. When he reached Rhynie he had walked eight miles +to look at a railway engine for two and a half minutes--and he was +happy! + +As he went along the village street he heard a familiar sound. + +"Clang-a-clang clang!--ssssssss!" It was irresistible. He stopped, +and stepped into the magic cavern of darkness, gleaming with the +forge-fire, where George Lobban, the smith, having hammered a glowing +horseshoe into shape, gripped it with his pincers and flung it hissing +into the water. + +Having cracked a joke with the laughing smith, Alec dragged himself +away from the smithy, past the green, and looked in at the stable to +curry-comb the pony and enjoy feeling the little beast's muzzle nosing +in his hand for oats. + +He let himself into the manse and ran up to his work-room, where +he began to print off some pages that he had set up on his little +printing press. + +At supper his mother looked sadly at her boy with his dancing eyes as +he told her about the wonders of the railway engine. In her heart she +wanted him to be a minister. And she did not see any sign that this +boy would ever become one: this lad of hers who was always running off +from his books to peer into the furnaces of the gas works, or to tease +the village carpenter into letting him plane a board, or to sit, with +chin in hands and elbows on knees, watching the saddler cutting +and padding and stitching his leather, or to creep into the +carding-mill--like the Budge and Toddy whose lives he had read--"to +see weels go wound." + +It was a bitter cold night in the Christmas vacation fourteen years +later.[51] Alec Mackay, now a young engineering student, was lost to +all sense of time as he read of the hairbreadth escapes and adventures +told by the African explorer, Stanley, in his book, _How I found +Livingstone_. + +He read these words of Stanley's: + + "For four months and four days I lived with Livingstone in the + same house, or in the same boat, or in the same tent, and I never + found a fault in him.... Each day's life with him added to my + admiration for him. His gentleness never forsakes him: his + hopefulness never deserts him. His is the Spartan heroism, the + inflexibility of the Roman, the enduring resolution of the + Anglo-Saxon. The man has conquered me." + +Alexander Mackay put down Stanley's book and gazed into the fire. +Since the days when he had trudged as a boy down to the station to see +the railway engine he had been a schoolboy in the Grammar School at +Aberdeen, and a student in Edinburgh, and while there had worked in +the great shipbuilding yards at Leith amid the clang and roar of the +rivetters and the engine shop. He was now studying in Berlin, drawing +the designs of great engines far more wonderful than the railway +engine he had almost worshipped as a boy. + +On the desk at Mackay's side lay his diary in which he wrote his +thoughts. In that diary were the words that he himself had written: + + "This day last year[52] Livingstone died--a Scotsman and a + Christian--loving God and his neighbour, in the heart of Africa. + 'Go thou and do likewise.'" + +Mackay wondered. Could it ever be that he would go into the heart of +Africa like Livingstone? it seemed impossible. What was the good of an +engineer among the lakes and forests of Central Africa? + +On the table by the side of Stanley's _How I found Livingstone_ lay a +newspaper, the Edinburgh _Daily Review_. Mackay glanced at it; then he +snatched it up and read eagerly a letter which appeared there. It was +a new call to Central Africa--the call, through Stanley, from King +M'tesa of Uganda, that home of massacre and torture. These are some of +the words that Stanley wrote: + + "King M'tesa of Uganda has been asking me about the white man's + God.... Oh that some practical missionary would come here. M'tesa + would give him anything that he desired--houses, land, cattle, + ivory. It is the practical Christian who can ... cure their + diseases, build dwellings, teach farming and turn his hand to + anything like a sailor--this is the man who is wanted. Such a one, + if he can be found, would become the saviour of Africa." + +Stanley called for "a practical man who could turn his hand to +anything--_if he can be found_." + +The words burned their way into Mackay's very soul. + +"If he can be found." Why here, here in this very room he sits--the +boy who has worked in the village at the carpenter's bench and the +saddler's table, in the smithy and the mill, when his mother wished +him to be at his books; the lad who has watched the ships building in +the docks of Aberdeen, and has himself with hammer and file and lathe +built and made machines in the engineering works--he is here--the "man +who can turn his hand to anything." And he had, we remember, already +written in his diary: + + "Livingstone died--a Scotsman and a Christian--loving God and his + neighbour, in the heart of Africa. 'Go thou and do likewise.'" + +Mackay did not hesitate. Then and there he took pen and ink and +paper and wrote to London to the Church Missionary Society which was +offering, in the daily paper that lay before him, to send men out to +King M'tesa. The words that Mackay wrote were these: + + "My heart burns for the deliverance of Africa, and if you can + send me to any one of those regions which Livingstone and Stanley + have found to be groaning under the curse of the slave-hunter I + shall be very glad." + +Within four months Mackay, with some other young missionaries who had +volunteered for the same great work, was standing on the deck of the +S.S. _Peshawur_ as she steamed out from Southampton for Zanzibar. + +He was in the footsteps of Livingstone--"a Scotsman and a +Christian"--making for the heart of Africa and "ready to turn his hand +to anything" for the sake of Him who as + + "... the Carpenter of Nazareth + Made common things for God." + +FOOTNOTES: + +[Footnote 49: "What is the minister gazing at, with his son Alec, in +the dust of the road?"] + +[Footnote 50: See Chapter XV.] + +[Footnote 51: December 12, 1875.] + +[Footnote 52: May 1, 1873.] + + + + +CHAPTER XIX + +THE ROADMAKER + +_Alexander Mackay_ + +(Date, 1878) + + +After many months of delay at Zanzibar, Mackay with his companions +and bearers started on his tramp of hundreds of miles along narrow +footpaths, often through swamps, delayed by fierce greedy chiefs who +demanded many cloths before they would let the travellers pass. One +of the little band of missionaries had already died of fever. When +hundreds of miles from the coast, Mackay was stricken with fever +and nearly died. His companions sent him back to the coast again to +recover, and they themselves went on and put together the _Daisy_, the +boat which the bearers had carried in sections on their heads, on the +shore of Victoria Nyanza. So Mackay, racked with fever, was carried +back by his Africans over the weary miles through swamp and forest to +the coast. At last he was well again, and with infinite labour he cut +a great wagon road for 230 miles to Mpapwa. With pick and shovel, axe +and saw, they cleared the road of trees for a hundred days. + +Mackay wrote home as he sat at night tired by the side of his +half-made road, "This will certainly yet be a highway for the King +Himself; and all that pass this way will come to know His Name." + +At length, after triumphing by sheer skill and will over a thousand +difficulties, Mackay reached the southern shore of Victoria Nyanza at +Kagei, to find that his surviving companions had gone on to Uganda in +an Arab sailing-dhow, leaving on the shore the _Daisy_, which had been +too small to carry them. + +On the beach by the side of that great inland sea, Victoria Nyanza, in +the heart of Africa, Mackay found the now broken and leaking _Daisy_. +Her cedar planks were twisted and had warped in the blazing sun till +every seam gaped. A hippopotamus had crunched her bow between his +terrible jaws. Many of her timbers had crumbled before the still +greater foe of the African boat-builder--the white ant. + +Now, under her shadow lay the man "who could turn his hand to +anything," on his back with hammer and chisel in hand. He was +rivetting a plate of copper on the hull of the _Daisy_. Already he had +nailed sheets of zinc and lead on stern and bow, and had driven cotton +wool picked from the bushes by the lake into the seams to caulk some +of the leaks. Around the boat stood crowds of Africans, their dark +faces full of astonishment at the white man mending his big canoe. + +"Why should a man toil so terribly hard?" they wondered. + +The tribesmen of the lake had only canoes hollowed out from a +tree-trunk, or made of some planks sewn together with fibres from the +banana tree. + +At last Mackay had his boat ready to sail up the Victoria Nyanza. +The whole of the length of that great sea, itself larger than his own +native Scotland, still separated Mackay from the land of Uganda for +which he had left Britain over fifteen months earlier. + +All through his disappointments and difficulties Mackay fought on. +With him, as with Livingstone, nothing had power to break his spirit +or quench his burning determination to carry on his God-given plan to +serve Africa. + +Every use of saw and hammer and chisel, every + + "trick of the tool's true trade," + +all the training in the shipbuilding yards and engineering shops at +Edinburgh and in Germany helped Mackay to invent some new, daring and +ingenious way out of every fresh difficulty. + + +_The Wreck of the "Daisy"_ + +Now at last the _Daisy_ was on the water again; and Mackay and his +bearers went aboard[53] and hoisting sail from Kagei ran northward. +Before they had gone far black storm clouds swept across the sky. +Night fell. Lightning blazed unceasingly and flung up into silhouette +the wild outlines of the mountains to the east. The roar of the +thunder echoed above the wail of the wind and the threshing of the +waves. + +All through the dark, Mackay and those of his men who could handle an +oar rowed unceasingly. Again and again he threw out his twenty-fathom +line, but in vain. He made out a dim line of precipitous cliffs, yet +the water seemed fathomless--the only map in existence was a rough +one that Stanley had made. At last the lead touched bottom at fourteen +fathoms. In the dim light of dawn they rowed and sailed toward a shady +beach before the cliffs, and anchored in three and a half fathoms of +water. + +The storm passed; but the waves from the open sea came roaring in and +broke over the _Daisy_. The bowsprit dipped under the anchor chain, +and the whole bulwark on the weatherside was carried away. The next +sea swept into the open and now sinking boat. By frantic efforts they +heaved up the anchor and the next wave swung the _Daisy_ with a crash +onto the beach, where the waves pounded her to a complete wreck, +wrenching the planks from the keel. But Mackay and his men managed to +rescue her cargo before she went to pieces. + +They were wrecked on a shore where Stanley, the great explorer, had +years before had a hairbreadth escape from massacre at the hands +of the wild savages. But Stanley, living up to the practice he had +learned from Livingstone, had turned enemies into friends, and now the +natives made no attack on the shipwrecked Mackay. + +For eight weeks Mackay laboured there, hard on the edge of the lake, +living on the beach in a tent made of spars and sails. With hammer and +chisel and saw he worked unsparingly at his task. He cut the middle +eight feet from the boat, and bringing her stern and stem together +patched the broken ends with wood from the middle part. After two +months' work the now dumpier _Daisy_ took the water again, and carried +Mackay and his men safely up the long shores of Victoria Nyanza to the +goal of all his travelling, the capital of M'tesa, King of Uganda. + +The rolling tattoo of goat-skin drums filled the royal reception-hall +of King M'tesa, as the great tyrant entered with his chiefs. M'tesa, +his dark, cruel heavy face in vivid contrast with his spotless white +robe, sat heavily down on his stool of State, while brazen trumpets +sent to him from England blared as Mackay entered. The chiefs squatted +on low stools and on the rush-strewn mud-floor before the King. At his +side stood his Prime Minister, the Katikiro, a smaller man than the +King, but swifter and more far-sighted. The Katikiro was dressed in a +snowy-white Arab gown covered by a black mantle trimmed with gold. In +his hard, guilty face treacherous cunning and masterful cruelty were +blended. + +M'tesa was gracious to Mackay, and gave him land on which to build +his home. More important to Mackay than even his hut was his workshop, +where he quickly fixed his forge and anvil, vise and lathe, and +grindstone, for he was now in the place where he could practise his +skill. It was for this that he had left home and friends, and pressed +on in spite of fever and shipwreck to serve Africa and lead her to the +worship of Jesus Christ by working and teaching as our Lord did when +on earth. + +One day the wide thatched roof of that workshop shaded from the +flaming rays of the sun a crowded circle of the chiefs of Uganda with +their slaves, who loved to come to "hear the bellows roar." They were +gazing at Mackay, whose strong, bare right arm was swinging his hammer + + "Clang-a-clang-clang." + +Then a ruddy glow lit up the dark faces of the watchers and the +bronzed face of the white man who in the centre of his workshop was +blowing up his forge fire. Gripping in his pincers the iron hoe that +was now red-hot, Mackay hammered it into shape and then plunged it all +hissing into the bath of water that stood by him. + +Hardly had the cloud of steam risen from the bath, when Mackay once +more gripped the hoe, and moving to his grindstone placed his foot on +the pedal and set the edge of the hoe against the whirling stone. +The sparks flew high. A murmur came from the Uganda chiefs who stood +around. + +"It is witchcraft," they said to one another. "It is witchcraft by +which Mazunga-wa-Kazi makes the hard iron tenfold harder in the water. +It is witchcraft by which he sends the wheels round and makes our hoes +sharp. Surely he is the great wizard." + +Mackay caught the sound of the new name that they had given +him--Mazunga-wa-Kazi--the White-Man-at-Work. They called him by this +name because to them it was very strange that any man should work with +his own hands. + +"Women are for work," said the chiefs. "Men go to talk with the King, +and to fight and eat." + +Mackay paused in his work and turned on them. + +"No," he said, "you are wrong. God made man with one stomach and with +two hands in order that he may work twice as much as he eats." And +Mackay held out before them his own hands blackened with the work of +the smithy, rough with the handling of hammer and saw, the file and +lathe. "But you," and he turned on them with a laugh and pointed to +their sleek bodies as they shone in the glow of the forge fire, "you +are all stomach and no hands." + +They grinned sheepishly at one another under this attack, and, as +Mackay let down the fire and put away his tools, they strolled off to +the hill on which the King's beehive-shaped thatched palace was built. + +Mackay climbed up the hill on the side of which his workshop stood. +From the ridge he gazed over the low-lying marsh from which the women +were bearing on their heads the water-pots. He knew that the men +and women of the land were suffering from fearful illnesses. He now +realised that the fevers came from the poisonous waters of the marsh. +He made up his mind how he could help them with his skill. They must +have pure water; yet they knew nothing of wells. + +Mackay at once searched the hill-side with his spade and found a bed +of clay emerging from the side of the hill. He climbed sixteen feet +higher up the hill and, bringing the men who could help him together, +began digging. He knew that he would reach spring water at the level +of the clay, for the rains that had filtered through the earth would +stop there. + +The Baganda[54] thought that he was mad. "Whoever," they asked one +another, "heard of digging in the top of a hill for water?" + +"When the hole is so deep," said Mackay, measuring out sixteen feet, +"water will come, pure and clean, and you will not need to carry it up +the hill from the marsh." + +They dug and dug till the hole was too deep to hurl the earth up over +the edge. Then Mackay made a pulley, which seemed a magic thing to +them, for they could not yet understand the working of wheels; and +with rope and bucket the earth was pulled up. Exactly at the depth of +sixteen feet the water welled in. The Baganda clapped their hands and +danced with delight. + +"Mackay is the great wizard. He is the mighty spirit," they cried. +"The King must come to see this." + +King M'tesa himself wondered at the story of the making of the well +and the finding of the water. He gave orders that he was to be carried +to view this great wonder. His eyes rolled with astonishment as he saw +it and heard of the wonders that were wrought by the work of men. + +Yet M'tesa and his men still wondered why any man should work +hard. Mackay tried to explain this to the King when he sat in his +reception-hall. Work, Mackay told M'tesa, is the noblest thing a +man can do, and he told him how Jesus Christ, the Son of the Great +Father-Spirit who made all things, did not Himself feel that work +was a thing too mean for Him. For our Lord, when He lived on earth at +Nazareth, worked with His own hands at the carpenter's bench, and made +all labour forever noble. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[Footnote 53: August 23, 1878.] + +[Footnote 54: The people of Uganda.] + + + + +CHAPTER XX + +FIGHTING THE SLAVE TRADE + +_Alexander Mackay_ + +(Date, 1878) + + +In the court of King M'tesa, Mackay always saw many boys who used to +drive away the flies from the King's face with fans, carry stools +for the chiefs and visitors to squat upon, run messages and make +themselves generally useful. Most of these boys were the sons of +chiefs. When they were not occupied with some errand, they would +lounge about playing games with one another in the open space just by +the King's hut. + +Often when Mackay came to speak with the King, he had to wait in this +place before he could have audience of M'tesa. He would bring with +him large sheets of paper on which he had printed in his workshop the +alphabet and some sentences. The printing was actually done with the +little hand-press that Mackay had used in his attic when he was a boy +in his old home in Rhynie. He had taken it with him all the way to +Uganda, and now was setting up letters and sentences in a language +which had never been printed before. + +The Baganda boys who had gathered round the White-Man-of-Work with +wondering eyes, as he with his "magic" printed the sheets of paper, +now crowded about him as he unrolled one of these white sheets with +the curious black smudges on them. Mackay made the noise that we call +A and then B, and pointed to these curious-shaped objects which we +call the letters of the alphabet. Then he got them to make the noise +and point to the letter that represented that sound. At last the +keenest of the boys really could repeat the alphabet right through and +begin to read whole words from another sheet--Baganda words--so that +at length they could read whole sentences. + +Two of these pioneer boys became very good scholars. One named Mukasa +became a Christian and was baptised with the name Samweli (Samuel); +another called Kakumba was baptised Yusufu (Joseph). A third boy had +been captured from a tribe in the north, and his skin was of a much +lighter brown than that of the Baganda boys. This light-skinned +captured slave was named Lugalama. + +Each of these boys felt that it was a very proud day when at last he +could actually read a whole sheet of printing from beginning to end +in his own language--from "Our Father" down to "the Kingdom, the power +and the glory, Amen." + +One morning these page-boys leapt to their feet as they heard the +familiar rattle of the drums that heralded the coming of King M'tesa. +They bowed as he entered the hall and sat heavily on his stool, while +his chiefs ranged themselves about him. + +On a stool near the King sat Mackay, the White-Man-of-Work. His +bronzed face was set in grim determination, for he knew that on that +morning he had a difficult battle to fight. + +Another loud battering of drum-heads filled the air. The entrance to +the hut was darkened by a tall, swarthy Arab in long, flowing robes, +followed by negro-bearers, who cast on the ground bales of cloth and +guns. The Arab wore on his head a red fez, round which a coloured +turban scarf was wound. He was a slave-trader from the coast, who +had come from the East to M'tesa in Uganda to buy men and women and +children to carry them away into slavery. + +King M'tesa was himself not only a slave-trader but a slave-raider. +He sent his fierce gangs of warriors out to raid a tribe away in the +hills to the north. They would dash into a village, slay the men, +and drag the boys and girls and women back to M'tesa as slaves. The +bronze-skinned boy, Lugalama, was a young slave who had been captured +on one of these bloodthirsty raids. And M'tesa, who often sent out +his executioners to slay his own people by the hundred to please the +dreaded and horrible god of small-pox, would also sell his people by +the hundred to get guns for his soldiers. + +The Arab slave-trader bowed to the earth before King M'tesa, who +signalled to him to speak. + +"I have come," said the Arab, pointing to the guns on the floor, +"to bring you these things in exchange for some men and women and +children. See, I offer you guns and percussion caps and cloth." And he +spread out lengths of the red cloth, and held out one of the guns with +its gleaming barrel. + +King M'tesa's eyes lighted up with desire as he saw the muskets and +the ammunition. These, he thought, are the things that will make me +powerful against my enemies. + +"I will give you," the Arab slave-trader went on, "one of these +lengths of red cloth in exchange for one man to be sold to me as +a slave; one of these guns for two men; and one hundred of these +percussion caps for a woman as a slave." + +Mackay looked into the cruel face of M'tesa, and he could see how the +ambitious King longed for the guns. Should he risk the favour of the +King by fighting the battle of a few slaves? Yet Mackay remembered as +he sat there, how Livingstone's great fight against the slave-traders +had made him, as a student, vow that he too would go out and fight +slavery in Africa. The memory nerved him for the fight he was now to +make. + +Mackay turned to M'tesa and said words like these:[55] + +"O King M'tesa, you are set as father over all your multitude of +people. They are your children. It is they who make you a great King. + +"Remember, O King, that the Sultan of Zanzibar himself has signed a +decree that no slaves shall be taken in all these lands and sold to +other lands down beyond the coast, whither this Arab would lead your +children. Therefore if you sell slaves you break his law. + +"Will you, then, sell your own people that they may be taken out of +their homeland into a strange country? They will be chained to one +another, beaten with whips, scourged and kicked, and many will be left +at the wayside to die; till the peoples of the coast shall laugh at +Uganda and say, 'That is how King M'tesa lets strangers treat his +children!'" + +We can imagine how the Arab turned and scowled fiercely at Mackay. +His heart raged, and he would have given anything to plunge the dagger +hidden in his robe into Mackay's heart. Who was this white man who +dared to try to stop his trade? But Mackay went on. + +"See," he said, pointing to the boys and the chiefs, "your children +are wonderfully made. Their bones, which are linked together, are +clothed with flesh; and from the heart in their breasts the blood that +gives men life flows to and fro through their bodies, while the breath +goes in and out of their lungs and makes them live. God the Father and +Maker of all men alone can create such wonders. No men who ever lived +could, if they worked all through their lives, make one thing so +marvellous as one of these boys. Will you, then, sell one of these +miracles, one of your children, for a bit of red rag which any man can +make in a day?" + +All eyes turned to King M'tesa to learn what he would say. + +The King with a wave of his hand dismissed the scowling Arab, while he +took counsel with his chiefs, and came to this decision: + +"My people shall no more be made slaves." + +A decree was written out and King M'tesa put his hand to it. The +crestfallen Arab and his men gathered up their guns and cloths, +marched down the hill to buy ivory instead of slaves for their bales +of red cloth, and went out of the dominions of King M'tesa, across the +Great Lake homeward. + +Mackay had won the first battle against slavery. His heart was very +glad. Yet he knew that, although he had scored a triumph in this fight +with the slave-dealer, he had not won in his great campaign. The King +was generally kind to Mackay, for he was proud to have so clever a +white man in his country. But he could not make up his mind to become +a Christian. M'tesa's heart had not really changed. His slave-raiding +of other tribes might still go on. The horrible butcherings of his +people to turn away the dreaded anger of the gods would continue. +Mackay felt he must press on with his work. He was slowly opening a +road through the jungle of cruelty and the marshes of dread of the +gods that made the life of the Baganda people dark and dreadful. + +All Uganda waited breathless one day as though the end of the world +had come. + +"King M'tesa is dead!" the cry went out through all the land. + +The people waited in dread and on tiptoe of eagerness till the new +king was selected by the chiefs from the sons of the dead ruler. + +At last a great cheer went up from the Palace. "M'wanga has eaten +Uganda!" they shouted. + +By this the people meant that M'wanga, a young son of M'tesa--only +eighteen years old--had been made King. He was, however, a boy with no +power--the mere feeble tool of the Katikiro (the Prime Minister) and +of Mujasi, the Captain of the King's own bodyguard of soldiers. Both +of these great men of the kingdom fiercely hated Mackay, for they were +jealous of his power over the old King. So they whispered into the +young M'wanga's ears stories like this: "You know that men say that +Uganda will be eaten up by an enemy from the lands of the rising sun. +Mackay and the other white men are making ready to bring thousands of +white soldiers into your land to 'eat it up' and to kill you." + +So M'wanga began to refuse to speak to Mackay. Then, because the King +was afraid to attack him, he began to lay plots against the boys. + +One morning Mackay started out from his house with five or six boys +and the crew of his boat to march down to the lake. Among the boys +were young Lugalama--the fair-haired slave-boy, now a freed-slave and +a servant to Mackay--and Kakumba, who had (you remember) been baptised +Joseph. The King and the Katikiro had given Mackay permission to go +down to the lake and sail across it to take letters to a place called +Msalala from which the carriers would bear them down to the coast. + +Down the hill the party walked, the crew carrying the baggage and the +oars on their heads. Mackay and his colleague Ashe, who had come out +from England to work with him, walked behind. + +To their surprise there came running down the path behind them and +past them a company of soldiers. + +"Where are you going?" asked Mackay of one of the soldiers. + +"Mujasi, the Captain of the Bodyguard," he replied, "has sent us to +capture some of the King's wives who have run away." + +Another and yet another body of soldiers rushed past them. Mackay +became more and more suspicious that some foul plot was being brewed. +He and his company had walked ten miles, and the lake was but two +miles away, divided from them by a wood. Suddenly there leapt out from +behind the trees of the wood hundreds of men headed by Mujasi himself. + +They levelled their guns and spears at Mackay and his friends and +yelled, "Go back! Go back!" + +"We are the King's friends," replied Mackay, "and we have his leave to +travel. How dare you insult us?" + +And they pushed forward. But the soldiers rushed at them; snatched +their walking-sticks from them and began to jostle them. Mackay and +Ashe sat down by the side of the path. Mujasi came up to them. + +"Where are you walking?" he asked. + +"We are travelling to the port with the permission of King M'wanga and +the Katikiro." + +"You are a liar!" replied Mujasi. + +Mujasi stood back and the soldiers rushed at the missionaries, dragged +them to their feet and held the muzzles of their guns within a few +inches of their chests. Mackay turned with his boys and marched back +to the capital. + +He and Ashe were allowed to go back to their own home on the side of +the hill, but the five boys were marched to the King's headquarters +and imprisoned. The Katikiro, when Mackay went to him, refused to +listen at first. Then he declared that Mackay was always taking boys +out of the country, and returning with armies of white men and hiding +them with the intention of conquering Uganda. + +The Katikiro waved them aside and the angry waiting mob rushed on the +missionaries yelling, "Mine shall be his coat!" "Mine his trousers!" +"No, mine!" shouted another, as the men scuffled with one another. + +Mackay and Ashe at last got back to their home and knelt in prayer. +Later on the same evening, they decided to attempt to win back +the King and the Prime Minister and Mujasi by gifts, so that their +imprisoned boys would be freed from danger. + +Mackay spoke to his other boys, telling them to go and fly for their +lives or they would be killed. + +In the morning Mackay heard that three of the boys who had been +captured on the previous day were not only bound as prisoners, but +that Mujasi was threatening to burn them to death. The boys were named +Seruwanga, Kakumba, and Lugalama. The eldest was fifteen, the youngest +twelve. + +The boys were led out with a mob of howling men and boys around them. +Mujasi shouted to them: "Oh, you know Isa Masiya (Jesus Christ). You +believe you will rise from the dead. I shall burn you, and you will +see if this is so." + +A hideous roar of laughter rose from the mob. The boys were led down +the hill towards the edge of a marsh. Behind them was a plantation of +banana trees. Some men who had carried bundles of firewood on their +heads threw the wood into a heap; others laid hold of each of the boys +and cut off their arms with hideous curved knives so that they should +not struggle in the fire. + +Seruwanga, the bravest, refused to utter a cry as he was cut to +pieces, but Kakumba shouted to Mujasi, who was a Mohammedan, "You +believe in Allah the Merciful. Be merciful!" But Mujasi had no mercy. + +We are told that the men who were watching held their breath with +awed amazement as they heard a boy's voice out of the flame and smoke +singing, + + "Daily, daily sing to Jesus, + Sing, my soul, His praises due." + +As the executioners came towards the youngest and feeblest, Lugalama, +he cried, "Oh, do not cut off my arms. I will not struggle, I will not +fight--only throw me into the fire." + +But they did their ghastly work, and threw the mutilated boy on a +wooden framework above the slow fire where his cries went up, till at +last there was silence. + +One other Christian stood by named Musali. Mujasi, with eyes bloodshot +and inflamed with cruelty, came towards him and cried: + +"Ah, you are here. I will burn you too and your household. You are a +follower of Isa (Jesus)." + +"Yes, I am," replied Musali, "and I am not ashamed of it." + +It was a marvel of courage to say in the face of the executioner's +fire and knife what Peter dared not say when the servant-maid in +Jerusalem laughed at him. Perhaps the heroism of Musali awed even the +cruel-hearted Mujasi. In any case he left Musali alone. + +For a little time M'wanga ceased to persecute the Christians. But the +wily Arabs whispered in his ear that the white men were still trying +to "eat up" his country. M'wanga was filled with mingled anger and +fear. Then his fury burst all bounds when Mujasi said to him: "There +is a great white man coming from the rising sun. Behind him will come +thousands of white soldiers." + +"Send at once and kill him," cried the demented M'wanga. + +A boy named Balikudembe, a Christian, heard the order and he could not +contain himself, but broke out, "Oh, King M'wanga, why are you going +to kill a white man? Your father did not do so." + +But the soldiers went out, travelled east along the paths till they +met the great Bishop Hannington being carried in a litter, stricken +with fever. They took him prisoner, and, after some days, slew him as +he stood defenceless before them. Hannington had been sent out to help +Mackay and his fellow-Christians. + +Then the King fell ill. He believed that the boy Balikudembe, who had +warned him not to kill the Bishop, had bewitched him. So M'wanga's +soldiers went and caught the lad and led him down to a place where +they lit a fire, and placing the boy over it, burned him slowly to +death. + +All through this time Mackay alone had not been really seriously +threatened, for his work and what he was made the King and the +Katikiro and even Mujasi afraid to do him to death. + +Then there came a tremendous thunderstorm. A flash of lightning smote +the King's house and it flamed up and burned to ashes. Then King +M'wanga seemed to go mad. He threatened to slay Mackay himself. + +"Take, seize, burn the Christians," he cried. And his executioners +and their minions rushed out, captured forty-six men and boys, slashed +their arms from their bodies with their cruel curved knives so that +they could not struggle, and then placed them over the ghastly flames +which slowly wrung the lives from their tortured bodies. Yet the +numbers of the Christians seemed to grow with persecution. + +The King himself beat one boy, Apolo Kagwa, with a stick and smote him +on the head, then knocked him down, kicked and stamped upon him. Then +the King burned all his books, crying, "Never read again." + +The other men and boys who had become Christians were now scattered +over the land in fear of their lives. Mackay, however, come what may, +determined to hold on. He set his little printing press to work and +printed off a letter which he sent to the scattered Christians. In +Mackay's letter was written these words, "In days of old Christians +were hated, were hunted, were driven out and were persecuted for +Jesus' sake, and thus it is to-day. Our beloved brothers, do not deny +our Lord Jesus!" + +At last M'wanga's mad cruelties grew so frightful that all his people +rose in rebellion and drove him from the throne, so that he had to +wander an outcast by the lake-side. Mackay at that time was working +by the lake, and he offered to shelter the deposed King who had only a +short time before threatened his life. + + * * * * * + +Two years passed; and Mackay, on the lake-side, was building a new +boat in which he hoped to sail to other villages to teach the people. +Then a fever struck him. He lay lingering for some days. Then he +died--aged only forty-one. + +If Mackay, instead of becoming a missionary, had entered the +engineering profession he might have become a great engineer. When he +was a missionary in Africa, the British East Africa Company offered +him a good position. He refused it. General Gordon offered him a high +position in his army in Egypt. He refused it. + +He held on when his friends and the Church Missionary Society called +him home. This is what he said to them, "What is this you write--'Come +home'? Surely now, in our terrible dearth of workers, it is not the +time for anyone to desert his post. Send us only our first twenty men, +and I may be tempted to come to help you to find the second twenty." + +He died when quite young; homeless, after a life in constant danger +from fever and from a half-mad tyrant king--his Christian disciples +having been burned. + +Was it worth while? + +To-day the Prime Minister of Uganda is Apolo Kagwa, who as a boy +was kicked and beaten and stamped upon by King M'wanga for being +a Christian; and the King of Uganda, Daudi, M'wanga's son, is a +Christian. At the capital there stands a fine cathedral in which brown +Baganda clergy lead the prayers of the Christian people. On the place +where the boys were burned to death there stands a Cross, put there by +70,000 Baganda Christians in memory of the young martyrs. + +Was their martyrdom worth while? + +To-day all the slave raiding has ceased for ever; innocent people are +not slaughtered to appease the gods; the burning of boys alive has +ceased. + +Mackay began the work. He made the first rough road and as he made it +he wrote: "This will certainly yet be a highway for the King Himself; +and all that pass this way will come to know His name." + +"And a highway shall be there and a way; and it shall be a way of +holiness." + +But the Way is not finished. And the last words that Mackay wrote +were: "Here is a sphere for your energies. Bring with you your highest +education and your greatest talents, and you will find scope for the +exercise of them all." + +FOOTNOTES: + +[Footnote 55: There is no record of the precise words, but Mackay +gives the argument in a letter home.] + + + + +CHAPTER XXI + +THE BLACK APOSTLE OF THE LONELY LAKE + +_Shomolekae_ + + +In the garden in Africa where, you remember, David Livingstone +plighted troth with Mary Moffat, as they stood under an almond tree, +there lived years ago a chocolate-skinned, curly-haired boy. His name +was Shomolekae.[56] + +His work was to go among the fruit trees, when the peaches and +apricots were growing and to shout and make a noise to scare away the +birds. If he had not done this they would have eaten up all the fruit. +This boy was born in Africa over seventy-five years ago, when Victoria +was a young queen. + +In the same garden was a grown-up gardener, also an African, with a +dark face and crisp, curly hair. The grown-up gardener one day stole +some of the fruit off the trees, and he went to the little boy, +Shomolekae, and offered him some apricots. + +Now, Shomolekae had learned to love the missionary, Mr. Mackenzie, +who had come to live in the house at Kuruman. He knew that it was very +wrong of the gardener to steal the fruit and throw the blame on the +birds. So he said that he would not touch the fruit. He went to an old +black friend of his named Paul and said to him: + +"The gardener has stolen the apples and plums and has asked me to eat +them. He has robbed Mr. Mackenzie. I do not know what to do." + +And old Paul went and told John Mackenzie, who took notice of the boy +Shomolekae and learned to trust him. + +Many months passed by; and two years later John Mackenzie was going +to a place further north in Africa than Kuruman. The name of this town +was Shoshong, where Mackenzie would live and teach the people about +Jesus Christ. So he went to the father of Shomolekae, whose name was +Sebolai. + +"Sebolai," said John Mackenzie, "I want to take your son, Shomolekae, +with me to Shoshong." + +Sebolai replied: "I am willing that my son should come to live with +you, but one thing I desire. It is that he should be taught his +reading and to know the stories in the Bible and such things." + +To this John Mackenzie quickly agreed, for he too desired that the boy +should read. + +So the sixteen oxen were yoked to the big wagon, and amid much +shouting and cracking of whips and lowing of oxen and creaking of +wagon-joints, John Mackenzie, Shomolekae, and the others, started from +Kuruman northward to Shoshong. + +Now, at Shoshong the chief was Sekhome, who, you remember, in our last +story, was father to Khama. So when they were at Shoshong, Shomolekae, +the young man who was cook, and Khama, the young man who was the son +of the chief, worshipped in the same little church together. It was +not such a church as you go to in our country--but just a little place +made of mud bricks that had been dried in the sun. There were holes +instead of windows, and there was no door in the open doorway; and on +the top of the little building was a roof of rough, reedy grass. + +These were the days that you heard of in the last story, when Khama, +seeing his tribe attacked by the fierce Lobengula, rode out on +horseback at the head of his regiment of cavalry and fought them and +beat them, and drove away Lobengula with a bullet in his neck. + +For two years Shomolekae, learning to read better every day, and +serving John Mackenzie faithfully in his house, lived at Shoshong. + +Sometimes Shomolekae took long journeys with wagon and oxen, and at +the end of two years he went with Mackenzie a great way in order to +buy windows, doors, hinges, nails, corrugated iron, and timber with +which to build a better church at Shoshong. + +When Shomolekae came back again with the wagons loaded up there was +great excitement in the tribe. Hammers and saws, screw-drivers and +chisels were busy day after day, and the missionary and his helpers +laid the bricks one upon another until there rose up a strong church +with windows and a door--a place in which the people went to worship +God the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. + +Again Shomolekae went away by wagon, and this time he travelled away +by the edge of the desert southward until at last he reached the +garden at Kuruman where as a boy he used to frighten the birds from +the fruit trees. He was now a very clever man at driving wagons and +oxen. + +This, as you know, is not so easy as driving a wagon with two horses +is in Britain. For there were as many as sixteen and even eighteen +oxen harnessed two by two to the long iron chains in front of the +wagon. + +There were no roads, only rough tracks, and the wagon would drag +through the deep sand, or bump over great boulders of rock, or sink +into wet places by the river. But at such times one of the natives +always led the two front oxen through the river with a long thong that +was fastened to their horns. + +So, in order to drive a wagon well, Shomolekae needed to be able to +manage sixteen oxen all at once, and keep them walking in a straight +line. He needed to know which were the bad-tempered ones and which +were the good, and which pulled best in one part of the span and which +in another; and how to keep them all pulling together and not lunging +at one another with their horns. + +Shomolekae also had to be so bold and daring that, if lions came to +eat the oxen at night, he could go with the gun and either frighten +them away or actually shoot them. + +So you see Shomolekae was very clever, and was full of good courage. + +While he was living at Kuruman a man came to him one day and said: + +"John Mackenzie is alone at Shoshong, and there is no one who can +drive his wagon well for him." + +The man who told him this was, as it happened, going by wagon to +Shoshong, where John Mackenzie lived. + +"Let me go with you," said Shomolekae. + +So he got up into the wagon, and away they went day after day +northward on the same journey that Shomolekae had taken when he was a +boy. + +So Shomolekae served Mackenzie for years as wagon driver at Shoshong. + +At last the time came when Mackenzie himself left the tribe at +Shoshong--left Khama and all his people--and travelled southward to +build at Kuruman a kind of small school where he could train young +black men to be missionaries to their own people. And Shomolekae +himself went to Kuruman with Mackenzie. He set to work with his own +hands, and he helped to make and lay bricks, to put in the doors and +windows, and to place the roof on the walls, until at last the little +school was built. + +And when it was actually built Shomolekae himself went to be a student +there, and Mackenzie began to train him to be a preacher and a teacher +to his own people. + +For three years Shomolekae worked hard in the college, learning more +and more about Jesus Christ, preparing himself to go among his own +people to tell them about Him. + +At last the time came when he was ready to go; and he started out, and +travelled long, long miles through sandy places, and then by a +river, until at last he reached a town of little thatched huts called +Pitsani, which means "The Town of the Little Hyena." + +In that town he gathered the men and women and the boys and girls +together and taught them the things that he knew. + +While Shomolekae was at Pitsani there came into that part of Africa a +new missionary, whose name was Mr. Wookey. + +It was decided that Mr. Wookey should go a long, long journey and +settle down by the shores of Lake Ngami, which, you remember, David +Livingstone had discovered long years before. + +Shomolekae wished to go out with Mr. Wookey into this country and to +help. So he took the wagon and yoked the oxen to it, loaded it up with +food and all the things needed for cooking as they travelled along, +and drove the oxen dragging the wagon over many hundreds of miles of +country in which leopards barked and lions roared, until at last they +came to the land near Lake Ngami. + +When they came into this land, and found a place in which to settle +down, clever Shomolekae mixed earth into mud just as boys and girls +do in order to make mud-pies, but he made the mud into the shape of +bricks, and then placed the bricks of mud out into the sun to dry. + +The sunshine was very, very hot indeed--so hot that the bricks became +hard and dry and strong. Day after day Shomolekae worked until he had +made a big heap of bricks. With these he built a little house for Mr. +Wookey to live in. But these sun-dried bricks soon spoil if they get +wet, so he had to build a verandah to keep the rain from the walls. + +When the house was built and Mr. Wookey was settled in it, they +travelled still further up the river to learn what people were living +there. + +After a while it was decided that Shomolekae should go and live in a +small village by the river, and there again begin his work of telling +the men and women of Jesus Christ, and teaching the boys and girls to +read. + +In his satchel, which was made of odd bits of calico print of +different patterns, Shomolekae had a hymn-book with music. The +hymn-book was written in the language of the people--the Sechuana +language--and Shomolekae taught them from the book to sing hymns. The +music was the sol-fa notation. + +This is one of the hymns: + + 1. "Yesu oa me oa nthata, + Leha ke le mo dibin; + A re yalo mo kwalon, + A re yalo mo pedun. + + E, Yesu oa me, + E, Yesu oa me, + E, Yesu oa me, + Oa me, mo loraton. + + 2. "Yesu oa me oa nthata, + O ntehetse molato; + O mpusitse timelon, + O ntlhapisa mo pedun. + + "E, Yesu oa me," etc. + +This is what these words mean in English. I expect you know them very +well. + + 1. "Jesus loves me, this I know, + For the Bible tells me so; + Little ones to Him belong, + They are weak, but He is strong. + + "Yes, Jesus loves me, + Yes, Jesus loves me, + Yes, Jesus loves me-- + The Bible tells me so. + + 2. "Jesus loves me, He who died + Heaven's gate to open wide; + He will wash away my sin, + Let His little child come in. + + "Yes, Jesus loves me," etc. + +But, you see, the missionary had to alter the words sometimes so as to +make the Sechuana lines come right for the music; and the second verse +really means: + + "My Jesus loves me; + He has paid my debt; + He has brought me back from where I strayed; + He has washed my heart. + + Yes, my Jesus, Yes, my Jesus. + Yes, my Jesus. Mine in love." + +They would learn the words off by heart because there was only the +one hymn-book, and they would sing them together, Shomolekae's voice +leading. + +They learned them so well that sometimes when the mothers were out +hoeing in the fields, or the little boys were paddling in their canoes +and fishing in the marshy waters, you would hear them singing the +hymns that they learned in Shomolekae's little school hut. + +Then on Sunday they would have Sunday-school, and when that was over +Shomolekae would gather the chocolate-faced men and women and boys and +girls together--all who would come--and he would teach them to kneel +down and pray to the one God, Who is our Father, and they would sing +the hymns that they had learned, and then he would speak to them a +simple little address, telling them of the Lord Jesus. + +But Shomolekae desired always to go further and further, even though +it was dangerous and difficult. So he got a canoe and launched it +in the river by the village and paddled further and further up the +stream, under the overhanging trees, and sometimes across the deep +pools in which the big and fierce hippopotami and crocodiles lived. + +He paddled up the River Okanvango, though many times he was in danger +of his life. The river was not like rivers in our own country, deep +and with strong banks; it was often filled all over with reeds, and +as shallow as a swamp, and poor Shomolekae had to push his way +with difficulty through these reeds. Always at night the poisonous +mosquitoes came buzzing and humming around him. The evil-tempered +hippopotamus would suddenly come up from the bottom of the river with +his wicked beady eyes, and great cavernous mouth, with its enormous +teeth, yawning at Shomolekae as though he quite meant to swallow him +whole. + +On the banks at night the lions would roar, and then the hyenas would +howl; but Shomolekae's brave heart held on, and he pushed on up the +river to preach and teach the people in the villages near the river. + +So through many years, with high courage and simple faith, Shomolekae +worked. + +A good many boys and girls in England before they are ten years old +own many more books than Shomolekae ever had and have read more than +he. They also have better homes than he, for he pushed on from one +mud hut to another along the rivers and lakes, and all the possessions +that he had in the world could be put into the bottom of his canoe. + +But our Heavenly Father, Who loves you and me, went with him every +step of the way. When Shomolekae taught the boys and girls to sing +hymns in praise of Jesus, even in a little mud hut, He was there, just +as He is in the most beautiful church when we worship Him. Now God has +taken Shomolekae across the last river to be with Himself. + +Shomolekae was a negro with dark skin and curly hair. We are white +children with fair faces and light hair. But God is his Father as well +as ours and loves us all alike and wishes to gather us together round +Him--loving Him and one another. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[Footnote 56: Pronounce Shoh-moh-leh-kei.] + + + + +CHAPTER XXII + +THE WOMAN WHO CONQUERED CANNIBALS + +_Mary Slessor_ + +(Dates, b. 1848, d. 1915) + + +I. THE MILL-GIRL + +_The Calabar Girls at the Station_ + +As the train from the south slowed down in Waverley Station, +Edinburgh, one day in 1898, a black face, with eyes wide open with +wonder, appeared at the window. The carriage door opened and a little +African girl was handed down onto the platform. + +The people on the station stopped to glance at the strange negro face. +But as a second African girl a little older than the first stepped +from the carriage to the platform, and a third, and then a fourth +black girl appeared, the cabmen and porters stood staring in amused +curiosity. + +Who was that strange woman (they asked one another), short and slight, +with a face like yellow parchment and with short, straight brown hair, +who smiled as she gathered the little tribe of African girls round her +on the railway platform? + +The telegraph boys and the news-boys gazed at her in astonishment. +But they would have been transfixed with amazement if they had known +a tenth of the wonder of the story of that heroic woman who, just +as simply as she stood there on the Waverley platform, had mastered +cannibals, conquered wild drunken chiefs brandishing loaded muskets, +had faced hunger and thirst under the flaming heat and burning fevers +of Africa, and walked unscathed by night through forests haunted by +ferocious leopards, to triumph over regiments of frenzied savages +drawn up for battle, had rescued from death hundreds of baby twins +thrown out to be eaten by ants--and had now brought home to Scotland +from West Africa four of these her rescued children. + +Still more would those Scottish boys at Waverley Station have +wondered, as they gazed on the little woman and her group of black +children, if they had known that the woman who had done these things, +Mary Slessor, had been a Scottish factory girl, who had toiled at her +weaving machine from six in the morning till six at night amid the +whirr of the belts, the flash of the shuttles, the rattle of the +looms, and the roar of the great machines. + +Born in Aberdeen, December 2, 1848, Mary Slessor was the daughter of +a Scottish shoemaker. Her mother was a gentle and sweet-faced woman. +After her father's death Mary was the mainstay of the home. Working +in a weaving shed in Dundee (whither the family moved when Mary was +eleven) she educated herself while at her machine. + +_The Call to Africa_ + +Like Livingstone, she taught herself with her book propped up on +the machine at which she worked. She read his travels and heard the +stories of his fight against slavery for Africa, till he became her +hero. + +One day the news flashed round the world: "Livingstone is dead. His +heart is buried in Central Africa." Mary had thrilled as she read the +story of his heroic and lonely life. Now he had fallen. She heard in +her heart the words that he had spoken: + +"I go to Africa to try to make an open door....; do you carry out the +work which I have begun. I LEAVE IT WITH YOU." + +As Mary sat, tired with her week's work, in her pew in the church on +Sunday, and thought of Livingstone's call to Africa, she saw visions +of far-off places of which she heard from the pulpit and read in her +magazines--visions of a steaming river on the West Coast of Africa +where the alligators slid from the mud banks into the water; visions +of the barracoons on the shore in which the captured negroes were +penned as they waited for the slave-ships; pictures of villages where +trembling prisoners dipped their hands in boiling oil to test their +guilt, and wives were strangled to go with their dead chief into the +spirit-land; visions of the fierce chiefs who could order a score of +men to be beheaded for a cannibal feast and then sell a hundred more +to be hounded away into the outer darkness of slavery--the Calabar +where the missionaries of her church were fighting the black darkness +of the most savage people of the world. + +Mary Slessor made up her mind to go out and give her whole life to +Africa. So she offered herself, a timorous girl who could not cross a +field with a cow in it, as a missionary for cannibal Calabar, in West +Africa. + +For twelve years she worked at the centre of the mission in Calabar +and then flung herself into pioneer work among the terrible tribe +of Okoyong. No one had ever been able to influence them. They defied +British administration. For fifteen years she strove there, and won +a power over the ferocious Okoyong savages such as no one has ever +wielded. "I'm a wee, wee wifie," she said, "no very bookit, but I grip +on well none the less." + +To-day over two thousand square miles of forest and rivers, +the dark savages, as they squat at night in the forest +around their palaver-fires, tell one another stories of the +Great-White-Ma-Who-Lived-Alone, and the stories they tell are like +these. + + +II. THE HEALING OF THE CHIEF + +_Through the Forest in the Rain_ + +A strange quiet lay over all the village by the river. For the chief +lay ill in his hut. The Calabar people were waiting on the tip-toe of +suspense. For if the chief died many of them would be slain to go +with him into the spirit-world--his wives and some of his soldiers and +slaves. + +Suddenly a strange African woman, who had come over from another +village, entered the chief's harem. She spoke to the wives of the +chief, saying, "There lives away through the forest at Ekenge a white +Ma who can cast out by her magic the demons who are killing your +chief. My son's child was dying, but the white Ma[57] saved her and +she is well to-day. Many other wonders has she done by the power of +her juju. Let your chief send for her and he will not die." + +There was silence and then eager chattering, for the women knew that +their very lives depended on the chief getting well. If he died, they +would be killed. + +They sent in word to the chief about the strange white Ma. + +"Let her be sent for," he ordered. "Send a bottle and four rods (value +about a shilling) and messengers to ask her to come." + +All through the day the messengers hurried over stream and hill, +through village after village and along the forest paths till at last, +after eight hours' journey, they came to the village of Ekenge. Going +to the courtyard of the chief they told him the story of their sick +chief, and their desire that the white Ma who lived in his village +should come and heal him. + +"She will say for herself what she will do," said the chief. + +So he sent a messenger to Mary Slessor. She soon came over from her +little house to learn what was needed of her. + +The story of the sick chief was again told. + +"What is the matter with your chief?" asked Mary Slessor. Blank faces +and nodding heads showed that they knew nothing at all. + +"I must go to him," she declared. She knew that the way was full of +perils, and that she might be killed by warriors and wild beasts; but +she knew too that, if she did not go and if the chief died, hundreds +of lives might be sacrificed. + +Chief Edem said, "There are warriors out in the woods and you will be +killed. You must not go." + +Ma Eme, a tall fat African widow of Ekenge village, who loved Mary +Slessor, said, "No, you must not go. The streams are deep; the rains +are come. You could never get there." + +But Mary Slessor said, "I _must_ go." + +"Then I will send women with you to look after you, and men to protect +you," said Chief Edem. + +Mary Slessor went back to her house to prepare to start on her long +dangerous journey in the morning. She could not sleep for wondering +whether she was indeed right to risk her life and all her work on the +off-chance of saving this distant sick chief. She knelt down and asked +God to guide her. Then she felt in her heart that she must go. + +In the morning at dawn a guard of Ekenge women came to her door. + +"The men will join us outside the village," they said. + +The skies were grey. The rain was falling as they started. When the +village lay behind them the rain began to pour in sheets. It came down +as only an African rain can, unceasing torrents of pitiless deluge. +Soon Mary Slessor's soaked boots became impossible to walk in. She +took them off and threw them into the bush; then her stockings went, +and she ploughed on in the mud in her bare feet. + +They had walked for three hours when, as the weather began to clear, +Mary Slessor came out into a market-place for neighbouring villages. +The hundreds of Africans who were bartering in the market-place turned +and stared at the strange white woman who swiftly passed through their +midst and disappeared into the bush beyond. + +So she pressed on for hour after hour, her head throbbing with fever, +her dauntless spirit driving her trembling, timid body onward till +at last, when she had been walking almost ceaselessly for over eight +hours, she tottered into the village of the sick chief. + + +_The Healing Hand._ + +Mary Slessor, aching from head to foot with fever and overwhelming +weariness, did not lie down even for a moment's rest, but walked +straight to the chief who lay senseless on his mat on the mud floor. +Having examined him she took from her little medicine chest a drug and +gave a dose to the chief. But she could see at once that more of this +medicine was needed than she had with her. She knew that, away on the +other side of the river, some hours distant, another missionary was +working. + +"You must go across the river to Ikorofiong for more medicine." + +"No, no!" they said, "we dare not go. They will slay any man who goes +there." + +She was in despair. Then someone said, "There is a man of that country +living in his canoe on the river. Perhaps he would go?" + +They ran down to the river and found him. After much persuading he at +last went, and returned next day with the medicine. + +The chief, whom the women had believed to be almost dead, gradually +recovered consciousness, then sat up and took food. At last he was +quite well. All the village laughed and sang for joy. There would be +no slaying. They gathered round Mary Slessor in grateful wonder at +her magic powers. She told them that she had come to them because +she worshipped the Great Physician Jesus Christ, the Son of the +Father--God who made all things. Then she gathered them together in +the morning and evening, and led them as with bowed heads they all +thanked God for the healing of the chief. + + +III. VALIANT IN FIGHT + +Years passed by and Mary Slessor's name was known in all the villages +for many miles. She was, to them, the white Ma who was brave and wise +and kind. She was mad, they thought, because she was always rescuing +the twin babies whom the Calabar people throw out to die and the +mothers of twins whom they often kill. But in some strange way they +felt that her wisdom, her skill in healing men, and her courage, which +was more heroic than that of their bravest warriors, came from the +Spirit who made all things. She would wrench guns from the hands of +drunken savage men who were three times as strong as she was. At last +she used to sit with their chief as judge of quarrels, and many times +in palavers between villages she stopped the people from going to war. + + +_Through the Forest Perilous_ + +One day a secret message came to her that, in some villages far away, +a man of one village had wounded the chief in another village and that +all the warriors were arming and holding councils of war. + +"I must go and stop it," said Mary Slessor. + +"You cannot," said her friends at Ekenge, "the steamer is coming to +take you home to Britain because you are so ill. You will miss the +boat. You are too ill to walk. The wild beasts in the woods will kill +you. The savage warriors are out, and will kill you in the dark--not +knowing who you are." + +"But I must go," she answered. + +The chief insisted that she must have two armed men with lanterns with +her, and that she must get the chief of a neighbouring village to send +out his drummer with her so that people might know--as they heard the +drum--that a protected person was travelling who must not be harmed. + +It was night, and Mary Slessor with her two companions marched out +into the darkness, the lanterns throwing up strange shadows that +looked like fierce men in the darkness. Through the night they walked +till at midnight they reached the village where they were to ask for +the drum. + +The chief was surly. + +"You are going to a warlike people," he said. "They will not listen to +what a woman says. You had better go back. I will not protect you." + +Mary Slessor was on her mettle. + +"When you think of the woman's power," she said to the chief, "you +forget the power of the woman's God. I shall go on." + +And to the amazement of the savages in the villages she went on into +the darkness. Surely she must be mad. She defied their chief who had +the power to kill her. She had walked on into a forest where ferocious +leopards abounded ready to spring out upon her, and where men were +drinking themselves into a fury of war. And for what? To try with a +woman's tongue to stop the fiery chiefs and the savages of a distant +warlike tribe from fighting. Surely she was mad. + + +_Facing the Warriors_ + +She pressed on through the darkness. Then she saw the dim outlines +of huts. Mary Slessor had reached the first town in the war area. She +found the hut where an old Calabar woman lived who knew the white Ma. + +"Who is there?" came a whisper from within. + +But even as she replied there was a swift patter of bare feet. Out of +the darkness leapt a score of armed warriors. They were all round her. +From all parts dark shadows sprang forward till scores of men with +their chiefs were jostling, chattering and threatening. + +"What have you come for?" they asked. + +"I have heard that you are going to war. I have come to ask you not to +fight," she replied. + +The chiefs hurriedly talked together, then they came to her and said-- + +"The white Ma is welcome. She shall hear all that we have to say +before we fight. All the same we shall fight. For here you see are men +wounded. We _must_ wipe out the disgrace that is put upon us. Now she +must rest. Women, you take care of the white Ma. We will call her at +cock-crow when we start." + +This meant an hour's sleep. Mary Slessor lay down in a hut. It seemed +as though her eyes were hardly shut before she was wakened again. She +stood, tottering with tiredness, when she heard the cry-- + +"Run, Ma, run!" + +The warriors were off down the hill away to the fight. She ran, but +they were quickly out of sight on the way to the attack. Was all her +trouble in vain? She pressed on weak and breathless, but determined. +She heard wild yells and the roll of the war drum. The warriors she +had followed were feverishly making ready to fight, a hundred yards +distant from the enemy's village. + +She went up to them and spoke sternly. + +"Behave like men," she said, "not like fools. Do not yell and shout. +Hold your peace. I am going into the village there." + +She pointed to the enemy. Then she walked forward. Ahead of her stood +the enemy in unbroken ranks of dark warriors. They stood like a solid +wall. She hailed them as she walked forward. + +There was an ominous silence. She laughed. + +"How perfect your manners are!" she exclaimed. She was about to walk +forward and force them to make way for her when an old chief stepped +out toward her and, to her amazement, knelt down at her feet. + +"Ma," he said, "we thank you for coming to us. We own that we wounded +the chief over there. It was only one of our men who did it. It was +not the act of all our town. We ask you that you will speak with our +enemy to bring them to peace with us." + +_The Healed Chief_ + +She looked into the face of the chief. Then she saw to her joy that +this was the very chief whom she had toiled through the rain to heal +long ago. Because of what she had done then, he was now at her feet +asking her to make peace. Should she run back and tell the warriors, +who a hundred yards away were spoiling for a fight? That was her first +joyful thought. Then she saw that she must first make her authority +stronger over the whole band of warriors. + +"Stay where you are," she said. "Some of you find a place where I can +sit in comfort; and bring me food. I will not starve while men fight. +Choose two or three men to speak well for you, and we will have two +men from your enemies." + +These grim warriors, so sullen and threatening a few moments ago, +obeyed her every word. At length two chiefs came from the other side +and stood on one side of her, while the two chiefs chosen in the +village came and threw down their arms and knelt at their feet. + +"Your chief," they said, "was wounded by a drunken youth. Do not let +us shed blood through all our villages because of what he did. If +you will cease from war with us, we will pay to you any fine that the +white Ma shall say." + +She, too, pressed them to stop their fighting. Word went back to the +warriors on both sides, who became wildly excited. Some agreed, others +stormed and raged till they were in a frenzy. Would they fight even +over her body? Furious warriors came moving up from both sides. But +by arguing and appealing at last she persuaded the warlike tribe to +accept a fine. + + +_The Promise of Peace_ + +The town whose drunken youth had wounded the enemy chief at once paid +a part of the fine. They used no money. So the fine was paid in casks +and bottles of trade gin. Mary Slessor trembled. For as the boxes of +gin bottles were brought forward the warriors pranced with excitement +and made ready to get drunk. She knew that this would make them fight +after all. What could she do? The roar of voices rose. She could +not make her own voice heard. A daring idea flashed into her mind. +According to the law of these Egbo people, clothes thrown over +anything give it the protection of your body. She snatched off her +skirt and all the clothing she could spare and spread them over the +gin. She seized the one glass that the tribe had, and doled out +one portion only to each chief to test whether the bottles indeed +contained spirit. At last they grew quieter and she spoke to them. + +"I am going," she said, "across the Great Waters to my home, and I +shall be away many moons. Promise me here, on both sides, that you +will not go to war with one another while I am away." + +"We promise," they said. They gathered around her and she told them +the story of Jesus Christ in whose name she had come to them. + +"Now," she said, "go to your rest and fight no more." And the tribes +kept their promise to her,--so that when she returned they could say, +"It is peace." + + * * * * * + +For nearly forty years she worked on in Calabar, stricken scores of +times with fever. She rescued her hundreds of twin babies thrown out +to die in the forest, stopped wars and ordeal by poison, made peace, +healed the sick. + +At last, too weak to walk, she was wheeled through the forests and +along the valleys by some of her "twins" now grown to strong children, +and died there--the conquering Queen of Calabar, who ruled in the +hearts of even the fiercest cannibals through the power of the Faith, +by which out of weakness she was made strong. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[Footnote 57: The African uses the word "Ma" as mother, (_a_) to +name a woman after her eldest son, _e.g._ Mrs. Livingstone was called +Ma-Robert; and (_b_) as in this case, for a woman whom they respect.] + + + + +Book Four: HEROINES AND HEROES OF PLATEAU AND DESERT + + + + +CHAPTER XXIII + +SONS OF THE DESERT + +_Abdallah and Sabat_ + +(Time of Incidents, about 1800-1810) + + +_Two Arab Wanderers_ + +One day, more than a hundred years ago, two young Arabs, Abdallah and +Sabat, rode on their camels toward a city that was hidden among the +tawny hills standing upon the skyline. + +The sun was beginning to drop toward the edge of the desert away in +the direction of the Red Sea. The shadows of the long swinging legs of +the camels wavered in grotesque lines on the sand. There was a look +of excited expectation in the eyes of the young Arabs; for, by sunset, +their feet would walk the city of their dreams. + +They were bound for Mecca, the birthplace of Mohammed, the Holy City +toward which every man of the Mohammedan world turns five times a day +as he cries, "There is no God but Allah, and Mohammed is the prophet +of Allah." To have worshipped in Mecca before the sacred Kaaba and +to have kissed the black stone in its wall--this was to make Paradise +certain for them both. Having done that pilgrimage these two Arabs, +Sabat and Abdallah, would be able to take the proud title of "Haji" +which would proclaim to every man that they had been to Mecca--the +Holy of Holies. + +So they pressed on by the valley between the hills till they saw +before them the roofs and the minarets of Mecca itself. As darkness +rushed across the desert and the stars came out, the tired camels +knelt in the courtyard of the Khan,[58] and Sabat and Abdallah +alighted and stretched their cramped legs, and took their sleep. + +These young men, Sabat and Abdallah, the sons of notable Arab chiefs, +had struck up a great friendship. Now, each in company with his chum, +they were together at the end of the greatest journey that an Arab can +take. + +As the first faint flush of pink touched the mountain beyond Mecca, +the cry came from the minaret: "Come to prayer. Prayer is better than +sleep. There is no God but Allah." + +Sabat and Abdallah were already up and out, and that day they said the +Mohammedan prayer before the Kaaba itself with other pilgrims who had +come from many lands--from Egypt and Abyssinia, from Constantinople +and Damascus, Baghdad and Bokhara, from the defiles of the Khyber +Pass, from the streets of Delhi and the harbour of Zanzibar. + +We do not know what Abdallah looked like. He was probably like most +young Arab chieftains, a tall, sinewy man--brown-faced, dark-eyed, +with hair and a short-cropped beard that were between brown and black. + +His friend Sabat was, however, so striking that even in that great +crowd of many pilgrims people would turn to look at him. They would +turn round, for one reason, because of Sabat's voice. Even when he was +just talking to his friend his voice sounded like a roar; when he got +excited and in a passion (as he very often did) it rolled like thunder +and was louder than most men's shouting. As he spoke his large white +teeth gleamed in his wide mouth. His brown face and black arched +eyebrows were a dark setting for round eyes that flashed as he spoke. +His black beard flowed over his tawny throat and neck. Gold earrings +swung with his agitation and a gold chain gleamed round his neck. He +wore a bright silk jacket with long sleeves, and long, loose-flowing +trousers and richly embroidered shoes with turned-up toes. From a +girdle round his waist hung a dagger whose handle and hilt flashed +with jewels. + +Abdallah and Sabat were better educated than most Arabs, for they +could both read. But they were not men who could stay in one place +and read and think in quiet. When they had finished their worship at +Mecca, they determined to ride far away across the deserts eastward, +even to Kabul in the mountains of Afghanistan. So they rode, first +northward up the great camel-route toward Damascus, and then eastward. +In spite of robbers and hungry jackals, through mountain gorges, over +streams, across the Syrian desert from oasis to oasis, and then across +the Euphrates and the Tigris they went, till they had climbed rung by +rung the mountain ranges that hold up the great plateau of Persia. + +At last they broke in upon the rocky valleys of Afghanistan and came +to the gateway of India--to Kabul. They presented themselves to Zeman +Shah, the ruler of Afghanistan, and he was so taken with Abdallah's +capacity that he asked him to be one of his officers in the court. +So Abdallah stayed in Kabul. But the restless, fiery Sabat turned the +face of his camel westward and rode back into Persia to the lovely +city of Bokhara. + + +_Abdallah the Daring_ + +In Kabul there was an Armenian whose name we do not know: but he +owned a book printed in Arabic, a book that Abdallah could read. The +Armenian lent it to him. There were hardly any books in Arabic, so +Abdallah took this book and read it eagerly. As he read, he thought +that he had never in all his life heard of such wonderful things, +and he could feel in his very bones that they were true. He read four +short true stories in this book: they were what we call the Gospels +according to Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. As he read, Abdallah saw in +the stories Someone who was infinitely greater than Mohammed--One who +was so strong and gentle that He was always helping children and women +and people who were ill; so good that He always lived the very life +that God willed; and so brave that He died rather than give in to evil +men--our Lord Jesus Christ. + +"I worship Him," said Abdallah in his heart. Then he did a very daring +thing. He knew that if he turned Christian it would be the duty of +Mohammedans to kill him. Why not keep quiet and say nothing about his +change of heart? But he could not. He decided that he must come out +in the open and confess the new Captain of his life. He was baptized a +Christian. + +The Moslems were furious. To save his life Abdallah fled on his camel +westward to Bokhara. But the news that he had become a Christian flew +even faster than he himself rode. As he went along the streets of +Bokhara he saw his friend Sabat coming toward him. As a friend, Sabat +desired to save Abdallah; but as a Moslem, the cruel law of Mohammed +said that he must have him put to death. And Sabat was a fiery, +hot-tempered Moslem. + +"I had no pity," Sabat told his friends afterward. "I delivered him up +to Morad Shah, the King." + +So Abdallah was bound and carried before the Moslem judges. His friend +Sabat stood by watching, just as Saul had stood watching them stone +Stephen nearly eighteen centuries earlier. + +"You shall be given your life and be set free," they said, "if you +will spit upon the Cross and renounce Christ and say, 'There is no God +but Allah.'" + +"I refuse," said Abdallah. + +A sword was brought forward and unsheathed. Abdallah's arm was +stretched out: the sword was lifted--it flashed--and Abdallah's hand, +cut clean off, fell on the ground, while the blood spurted from his +arm. + +"Your life will still be given you if you renounce Christ and proclaim +Allah and Mohammed as His prophet." + +This is how Sabat himself described what happened next. "Abdallah made +no answer, but looked up steadfastly toward heaven, like Stephen, the +first martyr, his eyes streaming with tears. He looked at me," said +Sabat, "but it was with the countenance of forgiveness." + +Abdallah's other arm was stretched out, again the sword flashed and +fell. His other hand dropped to the ground. He stood there bleeding +and handless. He bowed his head and his neck was bared to the sword. +Again the blade flashed. He was beheaded, and Sabat--Sabat who had +ridden a thousand miles with his friend and had faced with him +the blistering sun of the desert and the snow-blizzard of the +mountain--saw Abdallah's head lie there on the ground and the dead +body carried away. + +Abdallah had died because he was faithful to Jesus Christ and because +Sabat had obeyed the law of Mohammed. + + +_The Old Sabat and the New_ + +The news spread through Bokhara like a forest fire. They could hardly +believe that a man would die for the Christian faith like that. As +Sabat told his friends afterward, "All Bokhara seemed to say, 'What +new thing is this?'" + +But Sabat was in agony of mind. Nothing that he could do would take +away from his eyes the vision of his friend's face as Abdallah had +looked at him when his hands were being cut off. He plunged out on +to the camel tracks of Asia to try to forget. He wandered far and he +wandered long, but he could not forget or find rest for his tortured +mind. + +At last he sailed away on the seas and landed on the coast of India at +Madras. The British East India Company then ruled in India, and they +gave Sabat a post in the civil courts as mufti, _i.e._ as an expounder +of the law of Mohammed. He spent most of his time in a coast town +north of Madras, called Vizagapatam.[59] A friend handed to him +there a little book in his native language--Arabic. It was another +translation of those stories that Abdallah had read in Kabul--it was +the New Testament.[60] + +Sabat sat reading this New Book. He then took up the book of +Mohammed's law--the Koran--which it was his daily work to explain. He +compared the two. "The truth came"--as he himself said--"like a flood +of light." He too began to worship Jesus Christ, whose life he had +read now for the first time in the New Testament. Sabat decided that +he must follow in Abdallah's footsteps. He became a Christian.[61] He +was then twenty-seven years of age. + + +_The Brother's Dagger_ + +In the world of the East news travels like magic by Arab dhow (sailing +ship) and camel caravan. Very quickly the news was in Arabia that +Sabat had renounced Mohammed and become a Christian. At once Sabat's +brother rose, girded on his dagger, left the tents of his tribe, +mounted his camel and coursed across Arabia to a port. There he took +ship for Madras. Landing, he disguised himself as an Indian and went +up to Vizagapatam to the house where his brother Sabat was living. + +Sabat saw this Indian, as he appeared to be, standing before him. He +suspected nothing. Suddenly the disguised brother put his hand within +his robe, seized his dagger, and leaping at Sabat made a fierce blow +at him. Sabat flung out his arm. He spoilt his brother's aim, but +he was too late to save himself. He was wounded, but not killed. The +brother threw off his disguise, and Sabat--remembering the forgiveness +of Abdallah--forgave his brother, gave him many presents, and sent +loving messages to his mother. + +Sabat decided that he could no longer work as an expounder of Moslem +law: he wanted to do work that would help to spread the Christian +Faith. He went away north to Calcutta, and there he joined the +great men who were working at the task of translating the Bible into +different languages and printing them. This work pleased Sabat, for +was it not through reading an Arabic New Testament that all his own +life had been changed? + +Because Sabat knew Persian as well as Arabic he was sent to help a +very clever young chaplain from England named Henry Martyn, who was +busily at work translating the New Testament into Persian and Arabic. +So Sabat went up the Ganges to Cawnpore with Henry Martyn. + +Sabat's fiery temper nearly drove Martyn wild. His was a flaming Arab +spirit, hot-headed and impetuous; yet he would be ready to die for +the man he cared for; proud and often ignorant, yet simple--as Martyn +said, "an artless child of the desert." + +Sabat's knowledge of Persian was not really so good as he himself +thought it was, and some of the Indian translators at Calcutta +criticised his translation. At this he got furiously angry, and, like +St. Peter, the fiery, impetuous apostle, he denied Jesus Christ and +spoke against Christianity. + +With his heart burning with rage and his great voice thundering with +anger, Sabat left his friends, went aboard ship and sailed down the +Bay of Bengal by the Indo-Chinese coast till he came to Penang, where +he began to live as a trader. + +But by this time the fire of his anger had burnt itself out. He--again +like Peter--remembered his denial of his Master, and when he saw in +a Penang newspaper an article saying that the famous Sabat, who had +become a Christian and then become a Mohammedan again, had come to +live in their city, he wrote a letter which was published in the +newspaper at Penang declaring that he was now--and for good and all--a +Christian. + +A British officer named Colonel MacInnes was stationed at Penang. +Sabat went to him. "My mind is full of great sorrow," he said, +"because I denied Jesus Christ. I have not had a moment's peace since +Satan made me do that bad work. I did it for revenge. I only want to +do one thing with my life: to spend it in undoing this evil that has +come through my denial." + +Sabat left the house of the Mohammedan with whom he was living in +Penang. He found an old friend of his named Johannes, an Armenian +Christian merchant, who had lived in Madras in the very days when +Sabat first became a Christian. Every night Johannes the Armenian +and Sabat the Arab got out their Bibles, and far into the night Sabat +would explain their meaning to Johannes. + +_The Prince from Sumatra_ + +One day all Penang was agog with excitement because a brown Prince +from Acheen, a Malay State in the island of Sumatra, had suddenly +sailed into the harbour. He was in flight from his own land, where +rebels had attacked him. The people of Acheen were wild and ferocious; +many of them were cannibals. + +"I will join you in helping to recover your throne," said Sabat to the +fugitive Prince. "I am going," said Sabat to Colonel MacInnes, "to see +if I can carry the message of Christianity to this fierce people." + +So Sabat and the Prince, with others, went aboard a sailing ship and +crossed the Strait of Malacca to Sumatra. They landed, and for long +the struggle with the rebels swayed from side to side. The Prince was +so pleased with Sabat that he made him his Prime Minister. But the +struggle dragged on and on; there seemed to be no hope of triumph. At +last Sabat decided to go back to Penang. One day he left the Prince +and started off, but soldiers of the rebel-chief Syfoolalim captured +him. + +Great was the joy of the rebels--their powerful enemy was in their +hands! They bound him, threw him into a boat, hoisted him aboard a +sailing ship and clapped him in the stifling darkness of the hold. As +he lay there he pierced his arm to make it bleed, and, with the blood +that came out, wrote on a piece of paper that was smuggled out and +sent to Penang to Colonel MacInnes. + +The agonies that Sabat suffered in the gloom and filth of that ship's +hold no one will ever know. We can learn from the words that he wrote +in the blood from his own body that they loaded worse horrors upon +him because he was a Christian. All the scene is black, but out of the +darkness comes a voice that makes us feel that Sabat was faithful at +the end. In his last letter to Colonel MacInnes he told how he was now +ready (like his friend Abdallah) to die for the sake of that Master +whom he had in his rage denied. + +Then one day his cruel gaolers came to the hold where he lay, and, +binding his limbs, thrust him into a sack, which they then closed. In +the choking darkness of the sack he was carried on deck and dragged +to the side of the ship. He heard the lapping of the waves. He felt +himself lifted and then hurled out into the air, and down--down with a +crash into the waters of the sea, which closed over him for ever. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[Footnote 58: The inn of the Near East--a square courtyard with all +the doors and windows inside, with primitive stables and bunks for the +camelmen, and sometimes rooms for the well-to-do travellers.] + +[Footnote 59: Pronounce Vi-zah'-ga-pat-ahm.] + +[Footnote 60: The Arabic New Testament revised by Solomon Negri and +sent to India by the Society for the Promotion of Christian Knowledge +in the middle of the eighteenth century.] + +[Footnote 61: Baptized "Nathaniel" at Madras by the Rev. Dr Kerr.] + + + + +CHAPTER XXIV + +A RACE AGAINST TIME + +_Henry Martyn_ + +(Dates, b. 1781, d. 1812. Time of Incident 1810-12) + + +In the story of Sabat that was told in the previous chapter you will +remember that, for a part of the time that he lived in India, he +worked with an Englishman named Henry Martyn. + +Sabat was almost a giant; Henry Martyn was slight and not very strong. +Yet--as we shall see in the story that follows--Henry Martyn was +braver and more constant than Sabat himself. + +As a boy Henry, who was born and went to school in Truro, in Cornwall, +in the West of England, was violently passionate, sensitive, and +physically rather fragile, and at school was protected from bullies by +a big boy, the son of Admiral Kempthorne. + +He left school at the age of fifteen and shot and read till he was +seventeen. In 1797 he became an undergraduate at St. John's College, +Cambridge. He was still very passionate. + +For instance, when a man was "ragging" him in the College Hall at +dinner, he was so furious that he flung a knife at him, which stuck +quivering in the panelling of the wall. Kempthorne, his old friend, +was at Cambridge with him. They used to read the Bible together and +Martyn became a real Christian and fought hard to overcome his violent +temper. + +He was a very clever scholar and became a Fellow of Jesus College in +1802. He at that time took orders in the Church of England. He became +very keen on reading about missionary work, e.g. Carey's story of +nine years' work in _Periodical Accounts_, and the L.M.S. Report on +Vanderkemp in South Africa. "I read nothing else while it lasted," he +said of the Vanderkemp report. + +He was accepted as a chaplain of the East India Company. They could +not sail till Admiral Nelson gave the word, because the French were +waiting to capture all the British ships. Five men-of-war convoyed +them when they sailed in 1805. They waited off Ireland, because the +immediate invasion of England by Napoleon was threatened. On board +Martyn worked hard at Hindustani, Bengali and Portuguese. He already +knew Greek, Latin and Hebrew. He arrived at Madras (South India) and +Calcutta and thence went to Cawnpore. It is at this point that our +yarn begins. + +A voice like thunder, speaking in a strange tongue, shouted across an +Indian garden one night in 1809. + +The new moon, looking "like a ball of ebony in an ivory cup,"--as one +who was there that night said--threw a cold light over the palm trees +and aloes, on the man who was speaking and on those who were seated +around him at the table in the bungalow. + +Beyond the garden the life of Cawnpore moved in its many streets; +the shout of a donkey-driver, the shrill of a bugle from the barracks +broke sharply through the muffled sounds of the city. The June wind, +heavy with the waters of the Ganges which flows past Cawnpore, made +the night insufferably hot. But the heat did not trouble Sabat, the +wild son of the Arabian desert, who was talking--as he always did--in +a roaring voice that was louder than most men's shouting. He was +telling the story of Abdallah's brave death as a Christian martyr.[62] + +Quietly listening to Sabat's voice--though he could not understand +what he was saying--was a young Italian, Padre Julius Cæsar, a monk of +the order of the Jesuits. On his head was a little skull-cap, over his +body a robe of fine purple satin held with a girdle of twisted silk. + +Near him sat an Indian scholar--on his dark head a full turban, and +about him richly-coloured robes. On the other side sat a little, thin, +copper-coloured Bengali dressed in white, and a British officer in his +scarlet and gold uniform, with his wife, who has told us the story of +that evening. + +Not one of these brightly dressed people was, however, the strongest +power there. A man in black clothes was the real centre of the group. +Very slight in build, not tall, clean-shaven, with a high forehead +and sensitive lips, young Henry Martyn seemed a stripling beside the +flaming Arab. Yet Sabat, with all his sound and fury, was no match for +the swift-witted, clear-brained young Englishman. Henry Martyn was a +chaplain in the army of the East India Company, which then ruled in +India. + +He was the only one of those who were listening to Sabat who could +understand what he was saying. When Sabat had finished his story, +Martyn turned, and, in his clear, musical voice translated it from +the Persian into Latin mixed with Italian for Padre Julius Cæsar, +into Hindustani for the Indian scholar, into Bengali for the Bengal +gentleman, and into English for the British officer and his wife. +Martyn could also talk to Sabat himself both in Arabic and in Persian. + +As Martyn listened to the rolling sentences of Sabat, the Christian +Arab, he seemed to see the lands beyond India, away across the Khyber +Pass, where Sabat had travelled--Mesopotamia, Arabia, Persia. + +Henry Martyn knew that in all those lands the people were Mohammedans. +He wanted one thing above everything else in the world: that was +to give them all the chance of doing what Sabat and Abdallah had +done--the chance of reading in their own languages the one book in the +world that could tell them that God was a Father--the book of letters +and of biographies that we call the New Testament. + + +_The Toil of Brain_ + +There was not in the world a copy of the New Testament in good +Persian. To make one Henry Martyn slaved hard, far into the hot, +sultry Indian nights, with scores of mosquitoes "pinging" round his +lamp and his head, grinding at his Persian grammar, so that he could +translate the life of Jesus Christ into that language. + +Even while he was listening to Sabat's story in the bungalow at +Cawnpore, Martyn knew that he was so ill that he could not live for +many years more. The doctor said that he must leave India for a time +to be in a healthier place. Should he go home to England, where all +his friends were? He wanted that; but much more he wanted to go on +with his work. So he asked the doctor if he might go to Persia on the +way home, and he agreed. + +So Martyn went down from Cawnpore to Calcutta, and in a boat down the +Hoogli river to the little Arab coasting sailing ship the _Hummoudi_, +which hoisted sail and started on its voyage round India to Bombay. +Martyn read while on board the Old Testament in the original Hebrew +and the New Testament in the original Greek, so that he might +understand them better and make a more perfect translation into +Persian. He read the Koran of Mohammed so that he could argue with +the Persians about it. And he worked hard at Arabic grammar, and read +books in Persian. Yet he was for ever cracking jokes with his fellow +travellers, cooped up in the little ship on the hot tropical seas. + +From Bombay the governor granted Martyn a passage up the Persian Gulf +in the _Benares_, a ship in the Indian Navy that was going on a cruise +to finish the exciting work of hunting down the fierce Arab pirates +of the Persian Gulf. So on Lady Day, 1811, the sailors got her under +weigh and tacked northward up the Gulf, till at last, on May 21, the +roofs and minarets of Bushire hove in sight. Martyn, leaning over the +bulwarks, could see the town jutting out into the Gulf on a spit of +sand and the sea almost surrounding it. That day he set foot for the +first time on the soil of Persia. + +_Across Persia on a Pony_ + +Aboard ship Martyn had allowed his beard and moustache to grow. When +he landed at Bushire he bought and wore the clothes of a Persian +gentleman, so that he should escape from attracting everybody's notice +by wearing clothes such as the people had never seen before. + +No one who had seen the pale, clean-shaven clergyman in black silk +coat and trousers in Cawnpore would have recognised the Henry +Martyn who rode out that night on his pony with an Armenian servant, +Zechariah of Isfahan, on his long one hundred and seventy mile journey +from Bushire to Shiraz. He wore a conical cap of black Astrakhan fur, +great baggy trousers of blue, bright red leather boots, a light tunic +of chintz, and over that a flowing cloak. + +They went out through the gates of Bushire on to the great plain of +burning sand that stretched away for ninety miles ahead of them. They +travelled by night, because the day was intolerably hot, but even at +midnight the heat was over 100 degrees. It was a fine moonlight night; +the stars sparkled over the plain. The bells tinkled on the mules' +necks as they walked across the sand. All else was silent. + +At last dawn broke. Martyn pitched his little tent under a tree, +the only shelter he could get. Gradually the heat grew more and more +intense. He was already so ill that it was difficult to travel. + +"When the thermometer was above 112 degrees--fever heat," says Martyn, +"I began to lose my strength fast. It became intolerable. I wrapped +myself up in a blanket and all the covering I could get to defend +myself from the air. By this means the moisture was kept a little +longer upon the body. I thought I should have lost my senses. The +thermometer at last stood at 126 degrees. I concluded that death was +inevitable." + +At last the sun went down: the thermometer crept lower: it was night +and time to start again. But Martyn had not slept or eaten. He could +hardly sit upright on his pony. Yet he set out and travelled on +through the night. + +Next morning he had a little shelter of leaves and branches made, and +an Arab poured water on the leaves and on Martyn all day to try to +keep some of the frightful heat from him. But even then the heat +almost slew him. So they marched on through another night and then +camped under a grove of date palms. + +"I threw myself on the burning ground and slept," Martyn wrote. "When +the tent came up I awoke in a burning fever. All day I had recourse to +the wet towel, which kept me alive, but would allow of no sleep." + +At nine that night they struck camp. The ground threw up the heat that +it had taken from the sun during the day. So frightfully hot was the +air that even at midnight Martyn could not travel without a wet towel +round his face and neck. + +As the night drew on the plain grew rougher: then it began to rise +to the foothills and mountains. At last the pony and mules were +clambering up rough steep paths so wild that there was (as Martyn +said) "nothing to mark the road but the rocks being a little more +worn in one place than in another." Suddenly in the darkness the pony +stopped; dimly through the gloom Martyn could see that they were on +the edge of a tremendous precipice. A single step more would have +plunged him over, to be smashed on the rocks hundreds of feet below. +Martyn did not move or try to guide the beast: he knew that the pony +himself was the safest guide. In a minute or two the animal moved, and +step by step clambered carefully up the rock-strewn mountain-side. + +At last they came out on the mountain top, but only to find that they +were on the edge of a flat high plain--a tableland. The air was pure +and fresher; the mules and the travellers revived. Martyn's pony began +to trot briskly along. So, as dawn came up, they came in sight of a +great courtyard built by the king of that country to refresh pilgrims. + +Through night after night they tramped, across plateau and mountain +range, till they climbed the third range, and then plunged by a +winding rocky path into a wide valley where, at a great town called +Kazrun, in a garden of cypress trees was a summer-house. + +Martyn lay down on the floor but could not sleep, though he was +horribly weary. "There seemed," he said, "to be fire within my head, +my skin like a cinder." His heart beat like a hammer. + +They went on climbing another range of mountains, first tormented +by mosquitoes, then frozen with cold; Martyn was so overwhelmed with +sleep that he could not sit on his pony and had to hurry ahead to keep +awake and then sit down with his back against a rock where he fell +asleep in a second, and had to be shaken to wake up when Zechariah, +the Armenian mule driver, came up to where he was. + +They had at last climbed the four mountain rungs of the ladder to +Persia, and came out on June 11th, 1811, on the great plain where the +city of Shiraz stands. Here he found the host Jaffir Ali Khan, to whom +he carried his letters of introduction. Martyn in his Persian dress, +seated on the ground, was feasted with curries and rice, sweets cooled +with snow and perfumed with rose water, and coffee. + +Ali Khan had a lovely garden of orange trees, and in the garden Martyn +sat. Ill as he was, he worked day in and day out to translate the life +of Jesus Christ in the New Testament from the Greek language into +pure and simple Persian. The kind host put up a tent for Martyn in the +garden, close to some beautiful vines, from which hung lovely bunches +of purple grapes. By the side of his tent ran a clear stream +of running water. All the evening nightingales sang sweetly and +mournfully. + +As he sat there at his work, men came hundreds of miles to talk with +this holy man, as they felt him to be. Moslems--they yet travelled +even from Baghdad and Bosra and Isfahan to hear this "infidel" speak +of Jesus Christ, and to argue as to which was the true religion. +Prince Abbas Mirza invited him to come to speak with him; and as +Martyn entered the Prince's courtyard a hundred fountains began to +send up jets of water in his honour. + +At last they came to him in such numbers that Martyn was obliged to +say to many of them that he could not see them. He hated sending them +away. What was it forced him to do so? + +_The Race against Time_ + +It was because he was running a race against time. He knew that he +could not live very long, because the disease that had smitten his +lungs was gaining ground every day. And the thing that he had come +to Persia for--the object that had made him face the long voyage, +the frightful heat and the freezing cold of the journey, the life +thousands of miles from his home in Cornwall--was that he might finish +such a translation of the New Testament into Persian that men should +love to read years and years after he had died. + +So each day Martyn finished another page or two of the book, written +in lovely Persian letters. He began the work within a week of reaching +Shiraz, and in seven months (February, 1812) it was finished. Three +more months were spent in writing out very beautiful copies of the +whole of the New Testament in this new translation, to be presented to +the Shah of Persia and to the heir to the throne, Prince Abbas Mirza. + +Then he started away on a journey right across Persia to find the Shah +and Prince so that he might give his precious books to them. On the +way he fell ill with great fever; he was so weak and giddy that he +could not stand. One night his head ached so that it almost drove him +mad; he shook all over with fever; then a great sweat broke out. He +was almost unconscious with weakness, but at midnight when the call +came to start he mounted his horse and, as he says, "set out, rather +dead than alive." So he pressed on in great weakness till he reached +Tabriz, and there met the British Ambassador. + +Martyn was rejoiced, and felt that all his pains were repaid when Sir +Gore Ouseley said that he himself would present the Sacred Book to +the Shah and the Prince. When the day came to give the book to Prince +Abbas, poor Henry Martyn was so weak that he could not rise from his +bed. Before the other copy could be presented to the Shah, Martyn had +died. This is how it came about. + + +_The Last Trail_ + +His great work was done. The New Testament was finished. He sent a +copy to the printers in India. He could now go home to England and +try to get well again. He started out on horseback with two Armenian +servants and a Turkish guide. He was making along the old track that +has been the road from Asia to Europe for thousands of years. His plan +was to travel across Persia, through Armenia and over the Black Sea to +Constantinople, and so back to England. + +For forty-five days he moved on, often going as much as ninety miles, +and generally as much as sixty in a day. He slept in filthy inns where +fleas and lice abounded and mosquitoes tormented him. Horses, cows, +buffaloes and sheep would pass through his sleeping-room, and the +stench of the stables nearly poisoned him. Yet he was so ill that +often he could hardly keep his seat on his horse. + +He travelled through deep ravines and over high mountain passes and +across vast plains. His head ached till he felt it would split; he +could not eat; fever came on. He shook with ague. Yet his remorseless +Turkish guide, Hassan, dragged him along, because he wanted to get the +journey over and go back home. + +At last one day Martyn got rest on damp ground in a hovel, his eyes +and forehead feeling as though a great fire burnt in them. "I was +almost frantic," he wrote. Martyn was, in fact, dying; yet Hassan +compelled him to ride a hundred and seventy miles of mountain track to +Tokat. Here, on October 6th, 1812, he wrote in his journal: + +"No horses to be had, I had an unexpected repose. I sat in the orchard +and thought with sweet comfort and peace of my God--in solitude my +Company, my Friend, my Comforter." + +It was the last word he was ever to write. + +Alone, without a human friend by him, he fell asleep. But the book +that he had written with his life-blood, the Persian New Testament, +was printed, and has told thousands of Persians in far places, where +no Christian man has penetrated, that story of the love of God that is +shown in Jesus Christ. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[Footnote 62: See Chapter XXIII.] + + + + +CHAPTER XXV + +THE MOSES OF THE ASSYRIANS + +_William Ambrose Shedd_ + +(1865-1918) + + +I + +A dark-haired American with black, penetrating eyes that looked you +steadily in the face, and sparkled with light when he laughed, sat on +a chair in a hall in 1918 in the ancient city of Urumia in the land of +Assyria where Persia and Turkey meet. + +His face was as brown with the sunshine of this eastern land as were +the wrinkled faces of the turbaned Assyrian village men who stood +before him. For he was born out here in Persia on Mount Seir.[63] +And he had lived here as a boy and a man, save for the time when his +splendid American father had sent him to Marietta, Ohio, for some of +his schooling, and to Princeton for his final training. His dark brown +moustache and short beard covered a firm mouth and a strong chin. +His vigorous expression and his strongly Roman nose added to the +commanding effect of his presence. + +A haunting terror had driven these ragged village people into the city +of Urumia, to ask help of this wonderful American leader whom they +almost worshipped because he was so strong and just and good. + +For the bloodthirsty Turks and the even more cruel and wilder Kurds +of the mountains were marching on the land. The Great War was raging +across the world and even the hidden peoples of this distant mountain +land were swept into its terrible flames. + +For Urumia city lies to the west of the southern end of the extremely +salt lake of the same name. It is about 150 miles west from the +Caspian Sea and the same distance north of the site of ancient +Nineveh. It stands on a small plain and in that tangle of lakes, +mountains and valley-plains where the ambitions of Russia, Persia and +Turkey have met, and where the Assyrians (Christians of one of the +most ancient churches in the world, which in the early centuries had +a chain of missions from Constantinople right across Asia to Peking), +the Kurds (wild, fierce Moslems), the Persians, the Turks and the +Russians struggled together. + +In front of Dr. William Ambrose Shedd there stood an old man from +the villages. His long grey hair and beard and his wrinkled face were +agitated as he told the American his story. The old man's dress was +covered with patches--an eyewitness counted thirty-seven patches--all +of different colours on one side of his cloak and loose baggy +trousers. + +"My field in my village I cannot plough," he said, "for we have no ox. +The Kurds have taken our possessions, you are our father. Grant us an +ox to plough and draw for us." + +Dr. Shedd saw that the old man spoke truth; he scribbled a few words +on a slip of paper and the old man went out satisfied. + +So for hour after hour, men and women from all the country round +came to this strange missionary who had been asked by the American +Government to administer relief, yes, and to be the Consul +representing America itself in that great territory. + +They came to him from the villages where, around the fire in the +Khans at night, men still tell stories of him as one of the great +hero-leaders of their race. These are the kind of stories that they +tell of the courage and the gentleness of this man who--while he was a +fine American scholar--yet knew the very heart of the Eastern peoples +in northwestern Persia as no American has ever done in all our +history. + +"One day," says one old village Assyrian greybeard, "Dr. Shedd was +sitting at meat in his house when his servant, Meshadi, ran into the +room crying, 'The Kurds have been among our people. They have taken +three girls, three Christian girls, and are carrying them off. They +have just passed the gate.' The Kurds were all bristling with daggers +and pistols. Dr. Shedd simply picked up the cane that he holds in his +hand when he walks. He hurried out of the house with Meshadi, ran up +the hill to the Kurd village that lies there, entered, said to the +fierce Kurds, 'Give back those girls to us.' And they, as they looked +into his face, could not resist him though they were armed and he was +not. So they gave the Assyrian girls back to him and he led them down +the hill to their homes." + +So he also stood single-handed between Turks and five hundred +Assyrians who had taken refuge in the missionary compound, and stopped +the Turks from massacring the Christians. + +But even as he worked in this way the tide of the great war flowed +towards Urumia. The people there were mostly Assyrians with some +Armenians; they were Christians. They looked southward across the +mountains to the British Army there in Mesopotamia for aid. + +But, as the Assyrians looked up from Urumia to the north they could +already see the first Turks coming down upon the city. Thousands upon +thousands of the Assyrians from the country villages crowded into the +city and into the American missionary compound, till actually even in +the mission school-rooms they were sleeping three deep--one lot on the +floor, another lot on the seats of the desks and a third on the top of +the desks themselves. + +"Hold on; resist; the help of the British will come," said Dr. Shedd +to the people. "Agha Petros with a thousand of our men has gone to +meet the British and he will come back with them and will throw back +the Turks." + +The Turks and the Kurds came on from the north; many of the Armenian +and Assyrian men were out across the plains to the east getting in the +harvest; and no sign of succour came from the south. + + +II + +Through the fierce hot days of July the people held on because Dr. +Shedd said that they must; but at last on the afternoon of July 30th +there came over all the people a strange irresistible panic. They +gathered all their goods together and piled them in wagons--food, +clothes, saucepans, jewelry, gold, silver, babies, old women, +mothers,--all were huddled and jumbled together. + +The wagons creaked, the oxen lurched down the roads to the south, the +little children cried with hunger and fright, the boys trudged +along rather excited at the adventure yet rather scared at the awful +hullabaloo and the strange feeling of horror of the cruel Kurdish +horsemen and of the crafty Turk. + +Dr. Shedd made one last vain effort to persuade the people to hold on +to their city; but it was impossible--they had gone, as it seemed, mad +with fright. + +He and his wife went to bed that night but not to sleep. At two +o'clock the telephone bell rang. + +"The Turks and Kurds are advancing; all the people are leaving," came +the message. + +"It is impossible to hold on any longer," said Dr. Shedd to his wife. +"I will go and tell all in the compound. You get things ready." + +Mrs. Shedd got up and began to collect what was needed: she packed +up food (bread, tea, sugar, nuts, raisins and so on), a frying pan, +a kettle, a saucepan, water jars, saddles, extra horse-shoes, ropes, +lanterns, a spade and bedding. By 7.30 the baggage wagon and two +Red Cross carts were ready. Dr. Shedd and Mrs. Shedd got up into the +wagon; the driver cried to his horses and they started. + +As they went out of the city on the south the Turks and Kurds came +raging in on the north. Within two hours the Turks and Kurds were +crashing into houses and burning them to the ground; but most of +the people had gone--for Dr. Shedd was practically the last to leave +Urumia. + +Ahead of them were the Armenians and Syrians in flight. They came to +a little bridge--a mass of sticks with mud thrown over them. Here, and +at every bridge, pandemonium reigned. This is how Mrs. Shedd describes +the scene: + +"The jam at every bridge was indescribable confusion. Every kind of +vehicle that you could imagine--ox carts, buffalo wagons, Red Cross +carts, troikas, foorgans like prairie schooners, hay-wagons, Russian +phaëtons and many others invented and fitted up for the occasion. The +animals--donkeys, horses, buffaloes, oxen, cows with their calves, +mules and herds of thousands of sheep and goats." + +All through the day they moved on, at the end of the procession--Dr. +Shedd, planning out how he could best get his people safely away from +the Turks who--he knew--would soon come pursuing them down the plain +to the mountains. Night fell and they were in a long line of wagons +close to a narrow bridge built by the Russians across the Baranduz +river. They had come some eighteen miles from Urumia. + +So they lay down in the wagons to try to sleep. But they could not and +at two o'clock in the night they moved on, crossed the river and drove +on for hour after hour toward the mountains that rose in a wall before +them. + +The poor horses were not strong so the wagon had to be lightened. +Assyrian boys took loads on their heads and trudged up the rocky +mountain road while the wagon jolted and groaned as it bumped its way +along. The trail of the mountain pass was littered with samovars (tea +urns), copper kettles, carpets, bedding; and here and there the body +of someone who had died on the way. At the very top of the pass lay a +baby thrown aside there and just drawing its last breath. + +So for two days they jolted on hardly getting an hour's sleep. At last +at midday on the third day they left Hadarabad at the south end of +Lake Urumia. Two hours later the sound of booming guns was heard. A +horseman galloped up. + +"The Turks are in Hadarabad," he said. "They are attacking the rear of +the procession." + +"It seemed," said Mrs. Shedd, "as if at any moment we should hear the +screams of those behind, as the enemy fell upon them." + +The wagons hurried on to the next town called Memetyar and there Dr. +Shedd waited, lightening his own wagons by throwing away everything +that they could spare--oil, potatoes, charcoal, every box except his +Bible and a small volume of Browning's Poems. + +Then they started again, along a road that was littered with the +discarded goods of the people. Then they saw on the road-side a little +baby girl that had been left by her parents. She was not a year old +and sat there all alone in a desolate spot. Left to die. Dr. Shedd +looked at his wife and she at him. + +He pulled up the horse and jumped down, picked up the baby and put her +in the wagon. They went along till they came to a large village. Here +they found a Kurdish mother. + +"Take care of this little girl till we come back," said Dr. Shedd, +"and here is some money for looking after her. We will give you more +when we come back if she is well looked after." + + +III + +Suddenly cannon were fired from the mountains and the people in +panic threw away their goods and hurried in a frenzy of fear down the +mountain passes. They passed on to the plain, and then as they were +in a village guns began to be fired. Three hundred Turks and Persians +were attacking under Majdi--Sultana of Urumia. Dr. Shedd, riding his +horse, gathered together some Armenian and Assyrian men with guns and +stayed with them to help them hold back the enemy, while the women +drove on. He was a good target sitting up there on his horse; but +without thinking of his own danger he kept his men at it. For he felt +like a shepherd with a great flock of fleeing sheep whom it was his +duty to protect. + +Panic seized the people. Strong men left their old mothers to die. +Mothers dropped their babies and ran. + +"One of my school-girls," Mrs. Shedd says, "afterward told me how she +had left her baby on the bank and waded with an older child through +the river when the enemy were coming after them. She couldn't carry +both. The memory of her deserted baby is always with her." + +The line of the refugees stretched for miles along the road. The enemy +fired from behind boulders on the mountain sides. The Armenians and +Syrians fired back from the road or ran up the mountains to chase +them. It was hopeless to think of driving the enemy off but Dr. +Shedd's object was to hold them off till help came. So he went up and +down on his horse encouraging the men; while the bullets whizzed over +the wagons. + +"I feared," said Mrs. Shedd, "that the enemy might get the better of +us and we should have to leave the carts and run for our lives. While +they were plundering the wagons and the loads we would get away. I +looked about me to see what we might carry. There was little May, +six years old (the daughter of one of their Syrian teachers) who had +unconcernedly curled herself up on the seat for a nap. I wrapped a +little bread in a cloth, put my glasses in my pocket, and took the bag +of money so that I should be ready on a moment's notice for Dr. Shedd +if they should swoop down upon us." + +All day long the firing went on from the mountain side as the tired +horses pulled along the rough trail. The sun began to sink toward the +horizon. What would happen in the darkness? + +Then they saw ahead of them coming from the south a group of men in +khaki. They were nine British Tommies with three Lewis guns under +Captain Savage. They had come ahead from the main body that had moved +up from Baghdad in order to defend the rear of the great procession. +The little company of soldiers passed on and the procession moved +forward. That tiny company of nine British Tommies ten miles farther +on was attacked by hundreds of Turks. All day they held the road, like +Horatius on the bridge, till at night the Cavalry came up and drove +off the enemy, and at last the Shedds reached the British camp. + +"Why are you right at the tail end of the retreat?" asked one of the +Syrian young men who had hurried forward into safety. + +"I would much rather be there," said Dr. Shedd with some scorn in +his voice, "than like you, leave the unarmed, the sick, the weak, the +women and the children to the mercy of the enemy." + +He was rejoiced that the British had come. + +"There was," said Mrs. Shedd, "a ring in his voice, a light in his +eyes, a buoyancy in his step that I had not seen for months." + +He had shepherded his thousands and thousands of boys and girls, and +men and women through the mountains into the protection of the British +squadron of troops. + + +IV + +Later that day Dr. Shedd began to feel the frightful heat of the +August day so exhausting that he had to lie down in the cart, which +had a canvas cover open at both ends and was therefore much cooler +than a tent. He got more and more feverish. So Mrs. Shedd got the +Assyrian boys to take out the baggage and she made up a bed for him on +the floor of the cart. + +The English doctor was out with the cavalry who were holding back and +dispersing the Turkish force. + +Then a British officer came and said: "We are moving the camp forward +under the protection of the mountains." + +It was late afternoon. The cart moved forward into the gathering +darkness. Mrs. Shedd crouched beside her husband on the floor of the +cart attending to him, expecting the outriders to tell her when they +came to the British Camp. + +For hours the cart rolled and jolted over the rough mountain roads. At +last it stopped, it was so dark they could not see the road. They were +in a gully and could not go forward. + +"Where is the British camp?" asked Mrs. Shedd. + +"We passed it miles back on the road," was the reply. + +It was a terrible blow: the doctor, the medicines, the comfort, the +nursing that would have helped Dr. Shedd were all miles away and he +was so ill that it was impossible to drive him back over that rough +mountain track in the inky darkness of the night. + +There was nothing to do but just stay where they were, send a +messenger to the camp for the doctor, and wait for the morning. + +"Only a few drops of oil were left in the lantern," Mrs. Shedd tells +us, "but I lighted it and looked at Mr. Shedd. I could see that he was +very sick indeed and asked two of the men to go back for the doctor. +It was midnight before the doctor reached us. + +"The men," Mrs. Shedd continues, "set fire to a deserted cart left +by the refugees and this furnished fire and light all night. They +arranged for guards in turn and lay down to rest on the roadside. +Hour after hour I crouched in the cart beside my husband massaging his +limbs when cramps attacked him, giving him water frequently, for while +he was very cold to the touch, he seemed feverish. We heated the hot +water bottle for his feet, and made coffee for him at the blaze; we +had no other nourishment. He got weaker and weaker, and a terrible +fear tugged at my heart. + +"Fifty thousand hunted, terror-stricken refugees had passed on; the +desolate, rocky mountains loomed above us, darkness was all about us +and heaven seemed too far away for prayer to reach. A deserted baby +wailed all night not far away. When the doctor came he gave two +hypodermic injections and returned to the camp saying we should wait +there for him to catch up to us in the morning. After the injections +Mr. Shedd rested better but he did not again regain consciousness. + +"When the light began to reveal things, I could see the awful change +in his face, but I could not believe that he was leaving me. Shortly +after light the men told me that we could not wait as they heard +fighting behind and it was evident the English were attacked, so in +his dying hour we had to take him over the rough, stony road. After +an hour or two Capt. Reed and the doctor caught up to us. We drew the +cart to the side of the road where soon he drew a few short, sharp +breaths--and I was alone." + +So the British officers, with a little hoe, on the mountain side dug +the grave of this brave American shepherd, who had given his life +in defending the Assyrian flock from the Turkish wolf. They made the +grave just above the road beside a rock; and on it they sprinkled dead +grass so that it might not be seen and polluted by the enemy. + + * * * * * + +The people Dr. Shedd loved were safe. The enemy, whose bullets he had +braved for day after day, was defeated by the British soldiers. But +the great American leader, whose tired body had not slept while the +Assyrians and Armenians were being hunted through the mountains, lies +there dreamless on the mountain side. + +These are words that broke from the lips of Assyrian sheiks when they +heard of his death: + +"He bore the burdens of the whole nation upon his shoulders to the +last breath of his life. + +"As long as we obeyed his advice and followed his lead we were safe +and prosperous, but when we ceased to do that destruction came upon +us. He was, and ever will be, the Moses of the Assyrian people." + +He lies there where his heart always was--in that land in which the +Turk, the Assyrian, the Armenian, the Persian, the Russian and the +Arab meet; he is there waiting for the others who will go out and +take up the work that he has left, the work of carrying to all those +eastern peoples the love of the Christ whom Dr. Shedd died in serving. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[Footnote 63: Born January 25th, 1865. Graduated Marietta College, +Ohio, 1887, and Princeton Theological Seminary, 1892.] + + + + +CHAPTER XXVI + +AN AMERICAN NURSE IN THE GREAT WAR + +_E.D. Cushman_ + +(Time 1914-1920) + + +_The Turk in Bed_ + +The cold, clear sunlight of a winter morning on the high plateau of +Asia Minor shone into the clean, white ward of a hospital in Konia +(the greatest city in the heart of that land). The hospital in which +the events that I am going to tell in this story happened is supported +by Christian folk in America, and was established by two American +medical missionaries, Dr. William S. Dodd, and Dr. Wilfred Post, with +Miss Cushman, the head nurse, sharing the general superintendence: +other members of the staff are Haralambos, their Armenian dispenser +and druggist, and Kleoniki, a Greek nurse trained by Miss Cushman. The +author spent the early spring of 1914 at the hospital in Konia, when +all the people named above were at work there. + +The tinkle of camel-bells as a caravan of laden beasts swung by, the +quick pad-pad of donkeys' hoofs, the howl of a Turkish dog, the cry +of a child--these and other sounds of the city came through the open +window of the ward. + +On a bed in the corner of the ward lay a bearded man--a Turk--who +lived in this ancient city of Konia (the Iconium of St. Paul's day). +His brown face and grizzled beard were oddly framed in the white of +the spotless pillow and sheets. + +His face turned to the door as it opened and the matron entered. The +eyes of the Turk as he lay there followed her as she walked toward +one of her deft, gentle-handed assistant nurses who, in their neat +uniforms with their olive-brown faces framed in dark hair, went +from bed to bed tending the patients; giving medicine to a boy +here, shaking up a pillow for a sick man there, taking a patient's +temperature yonder. Those skilled nurses were Armenian girls. The +Armenians are a Christian nation, who have been ruled by the Turks for +centuries and often have been massacred by them; yet these Armenian +girls were nursing the Turks in the hospital. But the matron of the +hospital was not a Turk, nor an Armenian. She had come four thousand +miles across the sea to heal the Turks and the Armenians in this land. +She was an American. + +The Turk in bed turned his eyes from the nurses to a picture on the +wall. A frown came on his face. He began to mutter angry words into +his beard. + +As a Turk he had always been taught, even as a little boy, that the +great Prophet Mohammed had told them they must have no pictures of +prophets, and he knew from what he had heard that the picture on the +wall showed the face of a prophet. It was a picture of a man with a +kind, strong face, dressed in garments of the lands of the East, and +wearing a short beard. He was stooping down healing a little child. It +was our Lord Jesus Christ the Great Physician. + +As Miss Cushman--for that was the name of the matron--moved toward his +bed, the Turk burst into angry speech. + +"Have that picture taken down," he said roughly, pointing to it. She +turned to look at the picture and then back at him, and said words +like these: "No, that is the picture of Jesus, the great Doctor who +lived long ago and taught the people that God is Love. It is because +He taught that, and has called me to follow in His steps, that I am +here to help to heal you." + +But the Turk, who was not used to having women disobey his commands, +again ordered angrily that the picture should be taken down. But the +American missionary-nurse said gently, but firmly: "No, the picture +must stay there to remind us of Jesus. If you cannot endure to see +the picture there, then if you wish you may leave the hospital, of +course." + +And so she passed on. The Turk lay in his bed and thought it over. He +wished to get well. If the doctors in this hospital--Dr. Dodd and +Dr. Post--did not attend him, and if the nurses did not give him his +medicine, he would not. He therefore decided to make no more fuss +about the picture. So he lay looking at it, and was rather surprised +to find in a few days that he liked to see it there, and that he +wanted to hear more and more about the great Prophet-Doctor, Jesus. + +Then he had another tussle of wills with Miss Cushman, the white +nurse from across the seas. It came about in this way. Women who are +Mohammedans keep their faces veiled, but the Armenian Christian nurses +had their faces uncovered. + +"Surely they are shameless women," he thought in his heart. "And they +are Armenians too--Christian infidels!" So he began to treat them +rudely. But the white nurse would not stand that. + +Miss Cushman went and stood by his bed and said: "I want you to +remember that these nurses of mine are here to help you to get well. +They are to you even as daughters tending their father; and you must +behave to them as a good father to good daughters." + +So the Turk lay in bed and thought about that also. It took him a +long time to take it in, for he had always been taught to hate the +Armenians and to think low thoughts about their womenfolk. But in the +end he learnt that lesson also. + +At last the Turk got well, left his bed, and went away. He was so +thankful that he was better that he was ready to do just anything in +the world that Miss Cushman wanted him to do. The days passed on in +the hospital, and always the white nurse from across the seas and the +Armenian nurses tended the Turkish and other patients, and healed them +through the heats of that summer. + + +_War and Massacre_ + +As summer came near to its end there broke on the world the dreadful +day when all Europe went to war. Miss Cushman's colleagues, the +American doctors at the hospital, left Konia for service in the +war. Soon Turkey entered the war. The fury of the Turks against the +Armenians burst out into a flame. You might see in Konia two or three +Turks sitting in the shadow of a little saddler's shop by the street +smoking their hubble-bubble water-pipes, and saying words like these: + +"The Armenians are plotting to help the enemies of Turkey. We shall +have to kill them all." + +"Yes, wipe them out--the accursed infidels!" + +The Turks hate the Armenians because their religion, Islam, teaches +them to hate the "infidel" Christians; they are of a foreign race and +foreign religion in countries ruled by Turks, though the Armenians +were there first, and the Armenians are cleverer business men than the +Turks, who hate to see their subjects richer than themselves, and hope +by massacre to seize Armenian wealth. + +Yet all the time, as the wounded Turks were sent from the Gallipoli +front back to Konia, the Armenian nurses in the hospital there were +healing them. But the Turkish Government gave its orders. Vile bands +of Turkish soldiers rushed down on the different cities and villages +of the Armenians.[64] One sunny morning a troop of Turkish soldiers +came dashing into a quiet little Armenian town among the hills. An +order was given. The Turks smashed in the doors of the houses. A +father stood up before his family; a bayonet was driven through him +and soldiers dashed over his dead body; they looted the house; they +smashed up his home; others seized the mother and the daughters--the +mother had a baby in her arms; the baby was flung on the ground and +then picked up dead on the point of a bayonet; and, though the mother +and daughters were not bayoneted then, it would have been better to +die at once than to suffer the unspeakable horrors that came to them. + +And that happened in hundreds of villages and cities to hundred of +thousands of Armenians, while hundreds of thousands more scattered +down the mountain passes in flight towards Konia. + + +_The Orphan Boys and Girls_ + +As Miss Cushman and her Armenian nurses looked out through the windows +of the hospital, their hearts were sad as they saw some of these +Armenian refugees trailing along the road like walking skeletons. What +was to happen to them? It was very dangerous for anyone to show that +they were friends with the Armenians, but the white matron was as +brave as she was kind; so she went out to do what she could to help +them. + +One day she saw a little boy so thin that the bones seemed almost to +be coming through his skin. He was very dirty; his hair was all matted +together; and there were bugs and fleas in his clothes and in his +hair. The hospital was so full that not another could be taken in. But +the boy would certainly die if he were not looked after properly. His +father and his mother had both been slain by the Turks; he did not +know where his brothers were. He was an orphan alone in all the world. + +Miss Cushman knew Armenian people in Konia, and she went to one of +these homes and told them about the poor boy and arranged to pay them +some money for the cost of his food. So she made a new home for him. +The next day she found another boy, and then a girl, and so she went +on and on, discovering little orphan Armenian boys and girls who had +nobody to care for them, and finding them homes--until she had over +six hundred orphans being cared for. It is certain that nearly all of +them would have died if she had not looked after them. + +So Miss Cushman gathered the six hundred Armenian children together +into an orphanage, that was half for the boys and half for the girls. +She was a hundred times better than the "Woman who Lived in a Shoe," +because, though she had so many children, she _did_ know what to +do. She taught them to make nearly everything for themselves. In the +mornings you would see half the boys figuring away at their sums or +learning to write and read, while the other boys were hammering and +sawing and planing at the carpenter's bench; cutting leather and +sewing it to make shoes for the other boys and girls; cutting petrol +tins up into sheets to solder into kettles and saucepans; and cutting +and stitching cloth to make clothes. A young American Red Cross +officer who went to see them wrote home, "The kids look happy and +healthy and as clean as a whistle." + + +_The People on the Plain_ + +As Miss Cushman looked out again from the hospital window she saw men +coming from the country into the city jogging along on little donkeys. + +"In the villages all across the plain," they said to her, "are +Armenian boys and girls, and men and women. They are starving. Many +are without homes, wandering about in rags till they simply lie down +on the ground, worn out, and die." + +Miss Cushman sent word to friends far away in America, and they sent +food from America to Turkey in ships, and a million dollars of money +to help the starving children. So Miss Cushman got together her boys +and girls and some other helpers, and soon they were very busy all day +and every day wrapping food and clothes into parcels. + +Next a caravan of snorting camels came swinging in to the courtyard +and, grumbling and rumbling, knelt down, to be loaded up. The parcels +were done up in big bales and strapped on to the camels' backs. Then +at a word from the driver the camels rose from their knees and went +lurching out from Konia into the country, over the rough, rolling +tracks, to carry to the people the food and clothes that would keep +them alive. + +The wonderful thing is that these camels were led by a Turk belonging +to the people who hate the Armenians, yet he was carrying food and +clothes to them! Why did this Turk in Konia go on countless journeys, +travelling over thousands of miles with tens of thousands of parcels +containing wheat for bread and new shirts and skirts and other clothes +for the Armenians whom he had always hated, and never lose a single +parcel? + +Why did he do it? + +This is the reason. Before the war when he was ill in the hospital +Miss Cushman had nursed him with the help of her Armenian girls, and +had made him better; he was so thankful that he would just run to do +anything that she wished him to do. + + +_To Stay or not to Stay?_ + +But at last Miss Cushman--worn out with all this work--fell ill with +a terrible fever. For some time it was not certain that she would not +die of it; for a whole month she lay sick in great weakness. President +Wilson had at this time broken off relations between America and +Turkey. The Turk now thought of the American as an enemy; and Miss +Cushman was an American. She was in peril. What was she to do? + +"It is not safe to stay," said her friends. "You will be practically a +prisoner of war. You will be at the mercy of the Turks. You know what +the Turk is--as treacherous as he is cruel. They can, if they wish, +rob you or deport you anywhere they like. Go now while the path is +open--before it is too late. You are in the very middle of Turkey, +hundreds of miles from any help. The dangers are terrible." + +As soon as she was well enough Miss Cushman went to the Turkish +Governor of Konia, a bitter Mohammedan who had organised the massacre +of forty thousand Armenians, to say that she had been asked to go back +to America. + +"What shall you do if I stay?" she asked. + +"I beg you to stay," said the Governor. "You shall be protected. You +need have no fear." + +"Your words are beautiful," she replied. "But if American and Turkey +go to war you will deport me." + +If she stayed she knew the risks under his rule. She was still weak +from her illness. There was no colleague by her side to help her. +There seemed to be every reason why she should sail away back to +America. But as she sat thinking it over she saw before her the +hospital full of wounded soldiers, the six hundred orphans who looked +to her for help, the plain of a hundred villages to which she was +sending food. No one could take her place. + +Yet she was weak and tired after her illness and, in America, rest and +home, friends and safety called to her. + +"It was," she wrote later to her friends, "a heavy problem to know +what to do with the orphans and other helpless people who depended on +me for life." + +What would you have done? What do you think she did? For what reason +should she face these perils? + +Not in the heat of battle, but in cool quiet thought, all alone among +enemies, she saw her path and took it. She did not count her life her +own. She was ready to give her life for her friends of all nations. +She decided to stay in the heart of the enemies' country and serve her +God and the children. Many a man has had the cross of Honour for an +act that called for less calm courage. That deed showed her to be one +of the great undecorated heroes and heroines of the lonely path. + +So she stayed on. + +From all over the Turkish Empire prisoners were sent to Konia. There +was great confusion in dealing with them, so the people of Konia +asked Miss Cushman to look after them; they even wrote to the Turkish +Government at Constantinople to tell them to write to her to invite +her to do this work. There was a regular hue and cry that she should +be appointed, because everyone knew her strong will, her power of +organising, her just treatment, her good judgment, and her loving +heart. So at last she accepted the invitation. Prisoners of eleven +different nationalities she helped--including British, French, +Italian, Russian, Indians and Arabs. She arranged for the nursing of +the sick, the feeding of the hungry, the freeing of some from prison. + +She went on right through the war to the end and beyond the end, +caring for her orphans, looking after the sick in hospital, sending +food and clothes to all parts of the country, helping the prisoners. +Without caring whether they were British or Turkish, Armenian or +Indian, she gave her help to those who needed it. And because of her +splendid courage thousands of boys and girls and men and women are +alive and well, who--without her--would have starved and frozen to +death. + +To-day, in and around Konia (an Army officer who has been there tells +us), the people do not say, "If Allah wills," but "If Miss Cushman +wills!" It is that officer's way of letting us see how, through her +brave daring, her love, and her hard work, that served everybody, +British, Armenian, Turk, Indian, and Arab, she has become the +uncrowned Queen of Konia, whose bidding all the people do because she +only cares to serve them, not counting her own life dear to her. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[Footnote 64: In reading this part of the story to younger children +discretion should be exercised. Some of the details on this page are +horrible; but it is right that older children should realize the evil +and how Miss Cushman's courage faced it.] + + + + +CHAPTER XXVII + +ON THE DESERT CAMEL TRAIL + +_Archibald Forder_ + +(Time of Incident 1900-1901) + + +_The Boy Who Listened_ + +An eight-year-old schoolboy sat one evening in a crowded meeting in +Salisbury, his eyes wide open with wonder as he heard a bronzed and +bearded man on the platform telling of his adventures in Africa. The +man was Robert Moffat. + +It was a hot summer night in August (1874). The walls of the building +where the meeting was held seemed to have disappeared and the boy +Archibald Forder could in imagination see "the plain of a thousand +villages," that Livingstone had seen when this same Robert Moffat had +called him to Africa many years before. As the boy Archibald heard +Moffat he too wished to go out into the foreign field. Many things +happened as he grew up; but he never forgot that evening. + +At the age of thirteen he left home and was apprenticed to the grocery +and baking business. In 1888 he married. At this time he read in a +magazine about missionary work in Kerak beyond the River Jordan--in +Moab among the Arabs--where a young married man ready to rough it was +needed. He sailed with his wife for Kerak on September 3, 1891, and +left Jerusalem by camel on September 30, on the four days' journey +across Jordan to Kerak. Three times they were robbed by brigands on +this journey. Mr. Forder worked there till 1896. He then left +and travelled through America to secure support for an attempt to +penetrate Central Arabia with the first effort to carry the Gospel of +Jesus Christ there. + +The story that follows tells how Forder made his pioneer journey into +the Arabian desert. + + +_The Adventure into the Desert_ + +Two pack-horses were stamping their hoofs impatiently outside a house +in Jerusalem in the early morning a week or two before Christmas.[65] +Inside the house a man was saying good-bye to his wife and his three +children. He was dressed as an Arab, with a long scarf wrapped about +his head and on the top the black rope of twisted goats' hair that the +Arab puts on when he becomes a man. + +"Will you be long, Father?" asked his little four-year-old boy. + +The father could not answer, for he was going out from Jerusalem for +hundreds of miles into the sun and the thirst of the desert, to the +land of the fiercest Arabs--Moslems whose religion tells them that +they must kill the infidel Christians. It was difficult to tear +himself from his wife and his children and go out to face death in +the desert. But he had come out here to carry to the Arab the story of +Jesus Christ, who Himself had died on a Cross outside this very city. + +So he kissed his little boy "good-bye," wrenched himself away, climbed +on top of the load on one of the pack horses and rode out through the +gate into the unknown. He thought as his horses picked their way down +the road from Jerusalem toward Jericho of how Jesus Christ had been +put to death in this very land. Over his left shoulder he saw the +slopes of the Mount of Olives; down below across the ravine on his +right was the Garden of Gethsemane. In a short time he was passing +through Bethany where Mary and Martha lived. Down the steep winding +road amongst the rocks he went, and took a cup of cold water at the +inn of the Good Samaritan. + +Then with the Wilderness of Desolation stretching its tawny tumbled +desert hills away to the left, he moved onward, down and down until +the road came out a thousand feet below sea-level among the huts and +sheepfolds of Jericho, where he slept that night. + +With his face toward the dawn that came up over the hills of Moab in +the distance, he was off again over the plain with the Dead Sea on +his right, across the swiftly flowing Jordan, and climbing the ravines +that lead into the mountains of Gilead. + +That night he stayed with a Circassian family in a little house of +only one room into which were crowded his two horses, a mule, two +donkeys, a yoke of oxen, some sheep and goats, a crowd of cocks and +hens, four small dirty children and their father and mother; and a +great multitude of fleas. + +The mother fried him a supper of eggs with bread, and after it he +showed them something that they had never seen before. He took out of +his pack a copy of the New Testament translated into Arabic.[66] He +read bits out of it and talked to them about the Love of God. + +Early next morning, his saddle-bag stuffed with a batch of loaves +which the woman had baked first thing in the morning specially for +him, he set out again. + +How could a whole batch of loaves be stuffed in one saddle-bag? The +loaves are flat and circular like a pancake. The dough is spread on a +kind of cushion, the woman takes up the cushion with the dough on it, +pushes it through the opening and slaps the dough on the inner wall +of a big mud oven (out of doors) that has been heated with a fire +of twigs, and in a minute or two pushes the cushion in again and the +cooked bread falls on to it. + +So Forder climbed up the mountain track till he came out on the high +plain. He saw the desert in front of him--like a vast rolling ocean of +glowing gold it stretched away and away for close on a thousand miles +eastward to the Persian Gulf. Forder knew that only here and there in +all those blazing, sandy wastes were oases where men could build their +houses round some well or little stream that soon lost itself in the +sand. All the rest was desert across which man and beast must hurry +or die of thirst. He must follow the camel-tracks from oasis to oasis, +where they could find a well of water, therefore drink for man and +camel, and date-palms. + +So turning north he pressed on[67] till on the sixth day out from +Jerusalem the clouds came up with the dawn, and hail and rain, carried +by a biting east wind, beat down upon him. Lifting his eyes to the +horizon he saw ahead the sturdy castle and thick walls of the ancient +city of Bosra. Stumbling through the storm, along the narrow winding +streets, he met, to his disgust, a man whose dress showed that he was +a Turkish Government official. He knew that the Turkish Government +would be against a Christian and a foreigner going into their land. + +"Who are you?" asked the official, stopping him. "Where are you from? +Where are you going?" + +Forder told him, and the man said. "Come with me. I will find you and +your horses shelter at the Governor's house." Forder followed him into +a large room in the middle of which on the floor a fire was burning. + +"I must examine all your cases," said the official. "Get up. Open your +boxes." + +"Never," said Forder. "This is not a custom-house." + +"Your boxes are full of powder for arming the Arabs against the +Turkish Government," replied the official. + +"I will not open them," said Forder, "unless you bring me written +orders from the Turkish Governor in Damascus and from the British +Consul." + +Off went the official to consult the headman (the equivalent of the +Mayor) of the city. The headman came and asked many questions. At last +he said: + +"Well, my orders are to turn back all Europeans and not to let any +stay in these parts. However, as you seem to be almost an Arab, may +God go with you and give you peace." + +So Forder and the headman of the ancient city of Bosra got talking +together. Forder opened his satchel and drew out an Arabic New +Testament, and together they read parts of the story of the life of +Jesus Christ and talked about Him till ten o'clock at night. As the +headman rose to go to his own rooms Forder offered to him, and he +gladly took, the copy of the New Testament in Arabic to read for +himself. + + +_Saved by the Mist_ + +Next morning early, Forder had his horses loaded and started off with +his face to the dawn. The track now led toward the great Castle of +Sulkhund, which he saw looming up on the horizon twenty-five miles +away, against the dull sky. But mist came down; wind, rain, and hail +buffeted him; the horses, to escape the hail in their faces, turned +aside, and the trail was lost. Mist hid everything. Forder's compass +showed that he was going south; so he turned east again; but he could +not strike the narrow, broken, stony trail. + +Suddenly smoke could be seen, and then a hamlet of thirty houses +loomed up. Forder opened a door and a voice came calling, "Welcome!" +He went in and saw some Arabs crouching there out of the rain. A fire +of dried manure was made; the smoke made Forder's eyes smart and the +tears run down his cheeks. He changed into another man's clothes, and +hung his own up in the smoke to dry. + +"Where are we?" he asked. The men told him that he was about two and +a half hours' ride from the castle and two hours off the track that he +had left in the mist. The men came in from the other little houses to +see the stranger and sip coffee. Forder again brought out an Arabic +New Testament and found to his surprise that some of the men could +read quite well and were very keen on his books. So they bought some +of the Bibles from him. They had no money but paid him in dried figs, +flour and eggs. At last they left him to curl up on the hard floor; +and in spite of the cold and draughts and the many fleas he soon fell +asleep. + +As dawn came up he rose and started off: there (as he climbed out of +the hollow in which the hamlet lay) he could see the Castle Sulkhund. +He knew that the Turks did not want any foreigner to enter that land +of the Arabs, and that if he were seen, he would certainly be ordered +back. Yet he could not hide, for the path ran close under the castle, +and on the wall strode the sentry. The plain was open; there was no +way by which he could creep past. + +At last he came to the hill on which the castle stood. At that very +moment a dense mist came down; he walked along, lost the track, and +found it again. Then there came a challenge from the sentry. He could +not see the sentry or the sentry him. So he called back in Arabic that +he was a friend, and so passed on in the mist. At last he was out on +the open ground beyond both the castle and the little town by it. +Five minutes later the mist blew away; the sun shone; the castle was +passed, and the open plains lay before him. The mist had saved him. + +In an hour he came to a large town named Orman on the edge of the +desert sandy plains; and here he stayed for some weeks. His horses +were sent back to Jerusalem. Instead of towns and villages of huts, +he would now find only the tents of wandering Arabs who had to keep +moving to find bits of sparse growth for their few sheep and camels. +While he was at Orman he managed to make friends with many of the +Arabs and with their Chief. He asked the Chief to help him on toward +Kaf--an oasis town across the desert. + +"Don't go," the Chief and his people said, "the Arabs there are bad: +when we go we never let our rifles out of our hands." + +So the old Chief told him of the dangers of the desert; death from +thirst or from the fiery Arabs of Kaf. + +"I am trusting God to protect and keep me," said Forder. "I believe He +will do so." + +So Forder handed the Chief most of his money to take care of, and +sewed up the rest into the waistband of his trousers. (It is as safe +as a bank to hand your money to an Arab chief who has entertained you +in his tent. If you have "eaten his salt" he will not betray or rob +you. Absolute loyalty to your guest is the unwritten law that no true +Arab ever breaks.) + + +_The Caravan of Two Thousand Camels_ + +At last the old Chief very unwillingly called a man, told him to get +a camel, load up Forder's things on it, and pass him on to the first +Arab tent that he found. Two days passed before they found a group +of Bedouin tents. He was allowed to sleep in a tent: but early in the +morning he woke with a jump. The whole of the tent had fallen right +on him; he crawled out. He saw the Arab women standing round; they had +pulled the tent down. + +"Why do you do this so early?" he asked. + +"The men," they replied, "have ordered us to move to another place; +they fear to give shelter to a Christian--one that is unclean and +would cause trouble to come on us." + +So the tribesmen with their women and flocks made off, leaving Forder, +his guide, and the camel alone in the desert. That afternoon he found +a tent and heard that a great caravan was expected to pass that night +on the way to Kaf to get salt. Night fell; it was a full moon. Forder +sat with the others in the tent doorway round the fire. A man ran up +to them. + +"I hear the bells of the camels," he said. Quickly Forder's goods +were loaded on a camel. He jumped on top. He was led off into the open +plain. Away across the desert clear in the moonlight came the dark +mass of the caravan with the tinkle of innumerable bells. + +Arabs galloped ahead of the caravan. They drew up their horses +shouting, "Who are you? What do you want?" Then came fifty horsemen +with long spears in their hands, rifles slung from their shoulders, +swords hanging from their belts, and revolvers stuck in their robes. +They were guarding the first section made up of four hundred camels. +There were four sections, each guarded by fifty warriors. + +As they passed, the man with Forder shouted out the names of friends +of his who--he thought--would be in the caravan. Sixteen hundred +camels passed in the moonlight, but still no answer came. Then the +last section began to pass. The cry went up again of the names of the +men. At last an answering shout was heard. The men they sought were +found. Forder's guide explained who he was and that he wanted to go to +Kaf. His baggage was swiftly shifted onto another camel, and in a +few minutes he had mounted, and his camel was swinging along with two +thousand others into the east. + +For hour after hour the tireless camels swung on and on, tawny beasts +on a tawny desert, under a silver moon that swam in a deep indigo sky +in which a million stars sparkled. The moon slowly sank behind them; +ahead the first flush of pink lighted the sky; but still they pushed +on. At last at half-past six in the morning they stopped. Forder flung +himself on the sand wrapped in his _abba_ (his Arab cloak) and in a +few seconds was asleep. In fifteen minutes, however, they awakened +him. Already most of the camels had moved on. From dawn till noon, +from noon under the blazing sun till half-past five in the afternoon, +the camels moved on and on, "unhasting, unresting." As the camels were +kneeling to be unloaded, a shout went up. Forder looking up saw ten +robbers on horseback on a mound. Like the wind the caravan warriors +galloped after them firing rapidly, and at last captured them and +dragged them back to the camp. + +"Start again," the command went round, and in fifteen minutes the two +thousand camels swung grumbling and groaning out on the endless trail +of the desert. The captured Arabs were marched in the centre. All +through the night the caravan went on from moonrise to moonset, and +through the morning from dawn till ten o'clock--for they dared not +rest while the tribe from whom they had captured the prisoners could +get near them. Then they released the captives and sent them back, +for on the horizon they saw the green palms of Kaf, the city that they +sought. + +The camels had only rested for thirty minutes in forty hours.[68] With +grunts of pleasure they dropped on their knees and were freed from +their loads, and began hungrily to eat their food. + +Forder leapt down and was so glad to be in Kaf that he ran into some +palm gardens close by and sang "Praise God from Whom all blessings +flow," jumped for joy, and then washed all the sweat and sand from +himself in a hot spring of sulphur water. + +Lying down on the floor of a little house to which he was shown, he +slept, with his head on his saddlebags, all day till nearly sunset. + +At sunset a gun was fired. The caravan was starting on its return +journey. Forder's companions on the caravan came to him. + +"Come back with us," they said. "Why will you stay with these cursed +people of Kaf? They will surely kill you because you are a Christian." + +It was hard to stay. But no Christian white man had ever been in that +land before carrying the Good News of Jesus, and Forder had come out +to risk his life for that very purpose. So he stayed. + +What made Forder put his life in peril and stand the heat, vermin, and +hate? Why try to make friends with these wild bandits? Why care about +them at all? He was a baker in his own country in England and might +have gone on with this work. It was the love of Christ that gave him +the love of all men, and, in obeying His command to "Go into all the +world," he found adventure, made friends, and left with them the Good +News in the New Testament. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[Footnote 65: Thursday morning, December 13, 1900.] + +[Footnote 66: Recall Henry Martyn and Sabat at work on this.] + +[Footnote 67: Passing Es-Salt (Ramoth Gilead), Gerash and Edrei in +Bashan.] + +[Footnote 68: It took the caravan six days to go back.] + + + + +CHAPTER XXVIII + +THE FRIEND OF THE ARAB + +_Archibald Forder_ + +(Date of Incident, 1901) + + +_The Lone Trail of Friendship_ + +So the two thousand camels swung out on the homeward trail. Forder now +was alone in Kaf. + +"Never," he says, "shall I forget the feeling of loneliness that came +over me as I made my way back to my room. The thought that I was +the only Christian in the whole district was one that I cannot well +describe." + +As Forder passed a group of Arabs he heard them muttering to one +another, "_Nisraney_[69]--one of the cursed ones--the enemy of Allah!" +He remembered that he had been warned that the Arabs of Kaf were +fierce, bigoted Moslems who would slay a Christian at sight. But he +put on a brave front and went to the Chief's house. There he sat down +with the men on the ground and began to eat with them from a great +iron pot a hot, slimy, greasy savoury, and then sipped coffee with +them. + +"Why have you come here?" they asked him. + +"My desire is," he replied, "to pass on to the Jowf." + +Now the Jowf is the largest town in the Syrian desert--the most +important in all Northern Arabia. From there camel caravans go north, +south, east, and west. Forder could see how his Arabic New Testaments +would be carried from that city to all the camel tracks of Arabia. + +"The Jowf is eleven days' camel ride away there," they said, pointing +to the south-east. + + +[Illustration: FORDER'S JOURNEY TO THE JOWF.] + +"Go back to Orman," said the Chief, whose name was Mohammed-el-Bady, +"it is at your peril that you go forward." + +He sent a servant to bring in the headman of his caravan. "This +_Nisraney_ wishes to go with the caravan to the Jowf," said the Chief. +"What do you think of it?" + +"If I took a Christian to the Jowf," replied the caravan leader, "I am +afraid Johar the Chief there would kill me for doing such a thing. I +cannot do it." + +"Yes," another said, turning to Forder, "if you ever want to see the +Jowf you must turn Moslem, as no Christian would be allowed to live +there many days." + +"Well," said the Chief, closing the discussion, "I will see more about +this to-morrow." + +As the men sat smoking round the fire Forder pulled a book out from +his pouch. They watched him curiously. + +"Can any of you read?" he asked. There were a number who could; so +Forder opened the book--which was an Arabic New Testament--at St. +John's Gospel, Chapter III. + +"Will you read?" he asked. + +So the Arab read in his own language this chapter. As we read the +chapter through ourselves it is interesting to wonder which of the +verses would be most easily understood by the Arabs. When the Arab who +was reading came to the words: + +"God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that +whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting +life," Forder talked to them telling what the words meant. They +listened very closely and asked many questions. It was all quite new +to them. + +"Will you give me the book?" asked the Arab who was reading. Forder +knew that he would only value it if he bought it, so he sold it to him +for some dates, and eight or nine men bought copies from him. + +Next day the Chief tried to get other passing Arabs to conduct Forder +to the Jowf, but none would take the risk. So at last he lent him two +of his own servants to lead him to Ithera--an oasis four hours' camel +ride across the desert. So away they went across the desert and in the +late afternoon saw the palms of Ithera. + +"We have brought you a Christian," shouted the servants as they led +Forder into a room full of men, and dumped his goods down on the +floor. "We stick him on to you; do what you can with him." + +"This is neither a Christian, nor a Jew, nor an infidel," shouted +one of the men, "but a pig." He did not know that Forder understood +Arabic. + +"Men," he replied boldly, "I am neither pig, infidel, nor Jew. I am a +Christian, one that worships God, the same God as you do." + +"If you are a Christian," exclaimed the old Chief, "go and sit among +the cattle!" So Forder went to the further end of the room and sat +between an old white mare and a camel. + +Soon a man came in, and walking over to Forder put his hand out and +shook his. He sat down by him and, talking very quietly so that the +others should not hear, said: "Who are you, and from where do you +come?" + +"From Jerusalem," said Forder. "I am a Christian preacher." + +"If you value your life," went on the stranger, "you will get out of +this as quickly as you can, or the men, who are a bad lot, will kill +you. I am a Druze[70] but I pretend to be a Moslem." + +"What sort of a man is the Chief of Ithera?" asked Forder. + +"Very kind," was the reply. So the friendly stranger went out. Forder +listened carefully to the talk. + +"Let us cut his throat while he is asleep," said one man. + +"No," said the Chief. "I will not have the blood of a Christian on my +house and town." + +"Let us poison his supper," said another. But the Chief would not +agree. + +"Drive him out into the desert to die of hunger and thirst," suggested +a third. "No," said the Chief, whose name was Khy-Khevan, "we will +leave him till the morning." + +Forder was then called to share supper with the others, and afterwards +the Chief led him out to the palm gardens, so that his evil influence +should not make the beasts ill; half an hour later, fearing he would +spoil the date-harvest by his presence, the Chief led him to a filthy +tent where an old man lay with a disease so horrible that they had +thrust him out of the village to die. + +The next day Forder found that later in the week the old Chief himself +was going to the Jowf. Ripping open the waistband of his trousers, +Forder took out four French Napoleons (gold coins worth 16s. each) and +went off to the Chief, whom he found alone in his guest room. + +Walking up to him Forder held out the money saying, "If you will let +me go to the Jowf with you, find me camel, water and food, I will give +you these four pieces." + +"Give them to me now," said Khy-Khevan, "and we will start after +to-morrow." + +"No," replied Forder, "you come outside, and before the men of the +place I will give them to you; they must be witnesses." So in the +presence of the men the bargain was made. + +In the morning the camels were got together--about a hundred and +twenty of them--with eighty men, some of whom came round Forder, and +patting their daggers and guns said, "These things are for using on +Christians. We shall leave your dead body in the sand if you do not +change your religion and be a follower of Mohammed." + +After these cheerful encouragements the caravan started at one +o'clock. For four hours they travelled. Then a shout went up--"Look +behind!" + +Looking round Forder saw a wild troop of Bedouin robbers galloping +after them as hard as they could ride. The camels were rushed together +in a group: the men of Ithera fired on the robbers and went after +them. After a short, sharp battle the robbers made off and the men +settled down where they were for the night, during which they had to +beat off another attack by the robbers. + +Forder said, "What brave fellows you are!" This praise pleased them +immensely, and they began to be friendly with him, and forgot that +they had meant to leave his dead body in the desert, though they still +told him he would be killed at the Jowf. For three days they travelled +on without finding any water, and even on the fourth day they only +found it by digging up the sand with their fingers till they had made +a hole over six feet deep where they found some. + +_In the Heart of the Desert_ + +At last Forder saw the great mass of the old castle, "no one knows +how old," that guards the Jowf[71] that great isolated city with its +thousands of lovely green date palms in the heart of the tremendous +ocean of desert. + +Men, women and children came pouring out to meet their friends: for a +desert city is like a port to which the wilderness is the ocean, and +the caravan of camels is the ship, and the friends go down as men do +to the harbour to meet friends from across the sea. + +"May Allah curse him!" they cried, scowling, when they heard that a +Christian stranger was in the caravan. "The enemy of Allah and the +prophet! Unclean! Infidel!" + +Johar, the great Chief of the Jowf, commanded that Forder should be +brought into his presence, and proceeded to question him: + +"Did you come over here alone?" + +"Yes," he answered. + +"Were you not afraid?" + +"No," he replied. + +"Have you no fear of anyone?" + +"Yes, I fear God and the devil." + +"Do you not fear me?" + +"No." + +"But I could cut your head off." + +"Yes," answered Forder, "I know you could. But you wouldn't treat a +guest thus." + +"You must become a follower of Mohammed," said Johar, "for we are +taught to kill Christians. Say to me, 'There is no God but God and +Mohammed is His prophet' and I will give you wives and camels and +a house and palms." Everybody sat listening for the answer. Forder +paused and prayed in silence for a few seconds, for he knew that on +his answer life or death would depend. + +"Chief Johar," said Forder, "if you were in the land of the +Christians, the guest of the monarch, and if the ruler asked you to +become a Christian and give up your religion would you do it?" + +"No," said Johar proudly, "not if the ruler had my head cut off." + +"Secondly," he said to Johar, "which do you think it best to do, to +please God or to please man?" + +"To please God," said the Chief. + +"Johar," said Forder, "I am just like you; I cannot change my +religion, not if you cut off two heads; and I must please God +by remaining a Christian.... I cannot do what you ask me. It is +impossible." Johar rose up and went out much displeased. + + +_"Kill the Christian!"_ + +One day soon after this there was fierce anger because the mud tower +in which Johar was sitting fell in, and Johar was covered with the +debris. "This is the Christian's doing," someone cried. "He looked +at the tower and bewitched it, so it has fallen." At once the cry was +raised, "Kill the Christian--kill him--kill him! The Christian! The +Christian!" + +An angry mob dashed toward Forder with clubs, daggers and revolvers. +He stood still awaiting them. They were within eighty yards when, to +his own amazement, three men came from behind him, and standing +in front of Forder between him and his assailants pulled out their +revolvers and shouted, "Not one of you come near this Christian!" +The murderous crowd halted. Forder slowly walked backwards toward his +room, his defenders doing the same, and the crowd melted away. + +He then turned to his three defenders and said, "What made you come to +defend me as you did?" + +"We have been to India," they answered, "and we have seen the +Christians there, and we know that they do no harm to any man. We have +also seen the effect of the rule of you English in that land and in +Egypt, and we will always help Christians when we can. We wish the +English would come here; Christians are better than Moslems." + + * * * * * + +Other adventures came to Forder in the Jowf, and he read the New +Testament with some of the men who bought the books from him to read. +At last Khy-Khevan, the Chief of Ithera, who had brought Forder to the +Jowf, said that he must go back, and Forder, who had now learned what +he wished about the Jowf, and had put the books of the Gospel into the +hands of the men, decided to return to his wife and boys in Jerusalem +to prepare to bring them over to live with him in that land of the +Arabs. So he said farewell to the Chief Johar, and rode away on a +camel with Khy-Khevan. Many things he suffered--from fever and hunger, +from heat and thirst, and vermin. But at last he reached Jerusalem +once more; and his little four-year-old boy clapped hands with joy +as he saw his father come back after those long months of peril and +hardship. + +Fifteen hundred miles he had ridden on horse and camel, or walked. Two +hundred and fifty Arabic Gospels and Psalms had been sold to people +who had never seen them before. Hundreds of men and women had heard +him tell them of the love of Jesus. And friends had been made among +Arabs all over those desert tracks, to whom he could go back again in +the days that were to come. The Arabs of the Syrian Desert all think +of Archibald Forder to-day as their friend and listen to him because +he has proved to them that he wishes them well. + + +------------------------------------------------------------------+ + | "SEEING THEN THAT WE ARE COMPASSED ABOUT WITH SO GREAT A | + | CLOUD OF WITNESSES, LET US LAY ASIDE EVERY WEIGHT AND THE | + | SIN WHICH DOTH SO EASILY BESET US, AND LET US RUN WITH PATIENCE | + | THE RACE THAT IS SET BEFORE US, LOOKING UNTO JESUS, THE AUTHOR | + | AND PERFECTER OF OUR FAITH, WHO FOR THE JOY THAT WAS SET BEFORE | + | HIM ENDURED THE CROSS, DESPISING THE SHAME." | + +------------------------------------------------------------------+ + +FOOTNOTES: + +[Footnote 69: That is _Nasarene_ (or _Christian_).] + +[Footnote 70: The Druzes are a separate nation and sect whose religion +is a kind of Islam mixed with relics of old Eastern faiths, _e.g._, +sun-worship.] + +[Footnote 71: The Jowf is a large oasis town with about 40,000 +inhabitants, about 250 miles from the edge of the desert. The water +supply is drawn up by camels from deep down in the earth.] + + + + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's The Book of Missionary Heroes, by Basil Mathews + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE BOOK OF MISSIONARY HEROES *** + +***** This file should be named 16657-8.txt or 16657-8.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/1/6/6/5/16657/ + +Produced by Janet Blenkinship and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: The Book of Missionary Heroes + +Author: Basil Mathews + +Release Date: September 5, 2005 [EBook #16657] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE BOOK OF MISSIONARY HEROES *** + + + + +Produced by Janet Blenkinship and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net + + + + + + +</pre> + + + + + +<p><a name="Page_1" id="Page_1"></a></p> +<h1>THE BOOK OF +MISSIONARY HEROES</h1> + +<h3>BY</h3> + +<h2>BASIL MATHEWS, M.A.</h2> + +<h4><i>Author of "The Argonauts of Faith," "The Riddle +of Nearer Asia," etc.</i></h4> + + +<p class='center'>NEW YORK</p> + +<p class='center'>GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY</p> + +<p class='center'><a name="Page_2" id="Page_2"></a><i>Copyright, 1922</i>,</p> + +<p class='center'><i>By George H. Doran Company</i></p> + + + +<p class='center'>PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><a name="Page_3" id="Page_3"></a></p> +<h3><a name="CONTENTS" id="CONTENTS"></a>CONTENTS</h3> + + + +<div class='center'> +<table border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" summary=""> +<tr><td align='left'><a href="#PROLOGUE">PROLOGUE <span class="smcap">The Relay Race</span></a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><a href="#Book_One_THE_PIONEERS">Book One: THE PIONEERS</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><a href="#CHAPTER_I">CHAPTER I <span class="smcap">The Hero of the Long Trail</span> (<i>St. Paul</i>)</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><a href="#CHAPTER_II">CHAPTER II <span class="smcap">The Men on the Shingle Beach</span> (<i>Wilfrid of Sussex</i>)</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><a href="#CHAPTER_III">CHAPTER III <span class="smcap">The Knight of a New Crusade</span> (<i>Raymond Lull</i>)</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><a href="#CHAPTER_IV">CHAPTER IV <span class="smcap">Francis Cœur-de-Lion</span> (<i>St. Francis of Assisi</i>)</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><a href="#Book_Two_THE_ISLAND_ADVENTURERS">Book Two: THE ISLAND ADVENTURERS</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><a href="#CHAPTER_V">CHAPTER V <span class="smcap">The Adventurous Ship</span> (<i>The Duff</i>)</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><a href="#CHAPTER_VI">CHAPTER VI <span class="smcap">The Island Beacon Fires</span> (<i>Papeiha</i>)</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><a href="#CHAPTER_VII">CHAPTER VII <span class="smcap">The Daybreak Call</span> (<i>John Williams</i>)</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><a href="#CHAPTER_VIII">CHAPTER VIII <span class="smcap">Kapiolani, the Heroine of Hawaii</span> (<i>Kapiolani</i>)</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><a href="#CHAPTER_IX">CHAPTER IX <span class="smcap">The Canoe of Adventure</span> (<i>Elikana</i>)</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><a href="#CHAPTER_X">CHAPTER X <span class="smcap">The Arrows of Santa Cruz</span> (<i>Patteson</i>)</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><a href="#CHAPTER_XI">CHAPTER XI <span class="smcap">Five Knots in a Palm Leaf</span> (<i>Patteson</i>)</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><a href="#CHAPTER_XII">CHAPTER XII <span class="smcap">The Boy of the Adventurous Heart</span> (<i>Chalmers</i>)</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><a href="#CHAPTER_XIII">CHAPTER XIII <span class="smcap">The Scout of Papua</span> (<i>Chalmers</i>)</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><a href="#CHAPTER_XIV">CHAPTER XIV <span class="smcap">A South Sea Samaritan</span> (<i>Ruatoka</i>)</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><a href="#Book_Three_THE_PATHFINDERS_OF_AFRICA">Book Three: THE PATHFINDERS OF THE PATHFINDERS OF AFRICA</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><a href="#CHAPTER_XV">CHAPTER XV <span class="smcap">The Man Who Would Go On</span> (<i>Livingstone</i>)</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><a href="#CHAPTER_XVI">CHAPTER XVI <span class="smcap">A Black Prince of Africa</span> (<i>Khama</i>)</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><a href="#CHAPTER_XVII">CHAPTER XVII <span class="smcap">The Knight of the Slave Girls</span> (<i>George Grenfell</i>)</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><a href="#CHAPTER_XVIII">CHAPTER XVIII <span class="smcap">"A Man Who Can Turn His Hand to Anything"</span> (<i>Mackay</i>)</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><a href="#CHAPTER_XIX">CHAPTER XIX <span class="smcap">The Roadmaker</span> (<i>Mackay</i>)</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><a href="#CHAPTER_XX">CHAPTER XX <span class="smcap">Fighting the Slave Trade</span> (<i>Mackay</i>)</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><a href="#CHAPTER_XXI">CHAPTER XXI <span class="smcap">The Black Apostle of the Lonely Lake</span> (<i>Shomolakae</i>)</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><a href="#CHAPTER_XXII">CHAPTER XXII <span class="smcap">The Woman Who Conquered Cannibals</span> (<i>Mary Slessor</i>)</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><a href="#Book_Four_HEROINES_AND_HEROES_OF_PLATEAU_AND_DESERT">Book Four: HEROINES AND HEROES OF PLATEAU AND DESERT</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><a href="#CHAPTER_XXIII">CHAPTER XXIII <span class="smcap">Sons of the Desert</span> (<i>Abdallah and Sabat</i>)</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><a href="#CHAPTER_XXIV">CHAPTER XXIV <span class="smcap">A Race Against Time</span> (<i>Henry Martyn</i>)</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><a href="#CHAPTER_XXV">CHAPTER XXV <span class="smcap">The Moses of the Assyrians</span> (<i>Dr. Shedd</i>)</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><a href="#CHAPTER_XXVI">CHAPTER XXVI <span class="smcap">An American Nurse in the Great War</span> (<i>E.D. Cushman</i>)</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><a href="#CHAPTER_XXVII">CHAPTER XXVII <span class="smcap">On the Desert Camel Trail</span> (<i>Archibald Forder</i>)</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><a href="#CHAPTER_XXVIII">CHAPTER XXVIII <span class="smcap">The Friend of the Arab</span> (<i>Archibald Forder</i>)</a></td></tr> +</table></div> + + + +<p><a name="Page_8" id="Page_8"></a><a name="Page_9" id="Page_9"></a><br /><br /><br /><br /></p> + +<h2>THE BOOK OF<br /><br /> +MISSIONARY HEROES<br /><br /><br /><br /></h2> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h3><a name="PROLOGUE" id="PROLOGUE"></a>PROLOGUE</h3> + +<h4>THE RELAY-RACE</h4> + + +<p>The shining blue waters of two wonderful gulfs were +busy with fishing boats and little ships. The vessels +came under their square sails and were driven by galley-slaves +with great oars.</p> + +<p>A Greek boy standing, two thousand years ago, on +the wonderful mountain of the Acro-Corinth that +leaps suddenly from the plain above Corinth to a pinnacle +over a thousand feet high, could see the boats +come sailing from the east, where they hailed from the +Piræus and Ephesus and the marble islands of the +Ægean Sea. Turning round he could watch them also +coming from the West up the Gulf of Corinth from the +harbours of the Gulf and even from the Adriatic Sea +and Brundusium.</p> + +<p>In between the two gulfs lay the Isthmus of Corinth +to which the men on the ships were sailing and rowing.</p> + +<p>The people were all in holiday dress for the great +athletic sports were to be held on that day and the +next,—the sports that drew, in those ancient days, over +thirty thousand Greeks from all the country round; +<a name="Page_10" id="Page_10"></a>from the towns on the shores of the two gulfs and +from the mountain-lands of Greece,—from Parnassus +and Helicon and Delphi, from Athens and the villages +on the slopes of Hymettus and even from Sparta.</p> + +<p>These sports, which were some of the finest ever held +in the whole world, were called—because they were +held on this isthmus—the Isthmian Games.</p> + +<p>The athletes wrestled. They boxed with iron-studded +leather straps over their knuckles. They fought +lions brought across the Mediterranean (the Great Sea +as they called it) from Africa, and tigers carried up +the Khyber Pass across Persia from India. They flung +spears, threw quoits and ran foot-races. Amid the wild +cheering of thirty thousand throats the charioteers +drove their frenzied horses, lathered with foam, +around the roaring stadium.</p> + +<p>One of the most beautiful of these races has a +strange hold on the imagination. It was a relay-race. +This is how it was run.</p> + +<p>Men bearing torches stood in a line at the starting +point. Each man belonged to a separate team. Away +in the distance stood another row of men waiting. +Each of these was the comrade of one of those men +at the starting point. Farther on still, out of sight, +stood another row and then another and another.</p> + +<p>At the word "Go" the men at the starting point leapt +forward, their torches burning. They ran at top speed +towards the waiting men and then gasping for breath, +each passed his torch to his comrade in the next row. +He, in turn, seizing the flaming torch, leapt forward +and dashed along the course toward the next relay, +who again raced on and on till at last one man dashed +<a name="Page_11" id="Page_11"></a>past the winning post with his torch burning ahead +of all the others, amid the applauding cheers of the +multitude.</p> + +<p>The Greeks, who were very fond of this race, coined +a proverbial phrase from it. Translated it runs:</p> + +<p>"Let the torch-bearers hand on the flame to the +others" or "Let those who have the light pass it on."</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>That relay-race of torch-bearers is a living picture +of the wonderful relay-race of heroes who, right +through the centuries, have, with dauntless courage and +a scorn of danger and difficulty, passed through thrilling +adventures in order to carry the Light across the +continents and oceans of the world.</p> + +<p>The torch-bearers! The long race of those who +have borne, and still carry the torches, passing them +on from hand to hand, runs before us. A little ship +puts out from Seleucia, bearing a man who had caught +the fire in a blinding blaze of light on the road to +Damascus. Paul crosses the sea and then threads his +way through the cities of Cyprus and Asia Minor, +passes over the blue Ægean to answer the call from +Macedonia. We see the light quicken, flicker and +glow to a steady blaze in centre after centre of life, +till at last the torch-bearer reaches his goal in Rome.</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i4">"Yes, without cheer of sister or of daughter,<br /></span> +<span class="i4">Yes, without stay of father or of son,<br /></span> +<span class="i4">Lone on the land and homeless on the water<br /></span> +<span class="i4">Pass I in patience till the work be done."<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>Centuries pass and men of another age, taking the +light that Paul had brought, carry the torch over Ap<a name="Page_12" id="Page_12"></a>ennine +and Alp, through dense forests where wild +beasts and wilder savages roam, till they cross the +North Sea and the light reaches the fair-haired Angles +of Britain, on whose name Augustine had exercised +his punning humour, when he said, "Not Angles, but +Angels." From North and South, through Columba +and Aidan, Wilfred of Sussex and Bertha of Kent, the +light came to Britain.</p> + +<p>"Is not our life," said the aged seer to the Mercian +heathen king as the Missionary waited for permission +to lead them to Christ, "like a sparrow that flies from +the darkness through the open window into this hall +and flutters about in the torchlight for a few moments +to fly out again into the darkness of the night. Even +so we know not whence our life comes nor whither it +goes. This man can tell us. Shall we not receive his +teaching?" So the English, through these torch-bearers, +come into the light.</p> + +<p>The centuries pass by and in 1620 the little <i>Mayflower</i>, +bearing Christian descendants of those heathen +Angles—new torch-bearers, struggles through frightful +tempests to plant on the American Continent the +New England that was indeed to become the forerunner +of a New World.<a name="FNanchor_1_1" id="FNanchor_1_1"></a><a href="#Footnote_1_1" class="fnanchor">[1]</a></p> + +<p>A century and a half passes and down the estuary of +the Thames creeps another sailing ship.</p> + +<p>The Government officer shouts his challenge:</p> + +<p>"What ship is that and what is her cargo?"</p> + +<p>"The <i>Duff</i>," rings back the answer, "under Captain +Wilson, bearing Missionaries to the South Sea."</p> + +<p><a name="Page_13" id="Page_13"></a>The puzzled official has never heard of such beings! +But the little ship passes on and after adventures and +tempests in many seas at last reaches the far Pacific. +There the torch-bearers pass from island to island +and the light flames like a beacon fire across many a +blue lagoon and coral reef.</p> + +<p>One after another the great heroes sail out across +strange seas and penetrate hidden continents each with +a torch in his hand.</p> + +<p>Livingstone, the lion-hearted pathfinder in Africa, +goes out as the fearless explorer, the dauntless and resourceful +missionary, faced by poisoned arrows and the +guns of Arabs and marched with only his black companions +for thousands of miles through marsh and forest, +over mountain pass and across river swamps, in +loneliness and hunger, often with bleeding feet, on and +on to the little hut in old Chitambo's village in Ilala, +where he crossed the river. Livingstone is the Coeur-de-Lion +of our Great Crusade.</p> + +<p>John Williams, who, in his own words, could "never +be content with the limits of a single reef," built with +his own hands and almost without any tools on a cannibal +island the wonderful little ship <i>The Messenger of +Peace</i> in which he sailed many thousands of miles from +island to island across the Pacific Ocean.</p> + +<p>These are only two examples of the men whose adventures +are more thrilling than those of our story +books and yet are absolutely true, and we find them in +every country and in each of the centuries.</p> + +<p>So—as we look across the ages we</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i2">"See the race of hero-spirits<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Pass the torch from hand to hand."<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p><a name="Page_14" id="Page_14"></a>In this book the stories of a few of them are told as +yarns to boys and girls round a camp-fire. Every one +of the tales is historically true, and is accurate in detail.</p> + +<p>In that ancient Greek relay-race the prize to each +winner was simply a wreath of leaves cut by a priest +with a golden knife from trees in the sacred grove near +the Sea,—the grove where the Temple of Neptune, the +god of the Ocean, stood. It was just a crown of wild +olive that would wither away. Yet no man would have +changed it for its weight in gold.</p> + +<p>For when the proud winner in the race went back +to his little city, set among the hills, with his already +withering wreath, all the people would come and hail +him a victor and wave ribbons in the air. A great +sculptor would carve a statue of him in imperishable +marble and it would be set up in the city. And on the +head of the statue of the young athlete was carved a +wreath.</p> + +<p>In the great relay-race of the world many athletes—men +and women—have won great fame by the speed +and skill and daring with which they carried forward +the torch and, themselves dropping in their tracks, have +passed the flame on to the next runner; Paul, Francis, +Penn, Livingstone, Mackay, Florence Nightingale, and +a host of others. And many who have run just as +bravely and swiftly have won no fame at all though +their work was just as great. But the fame or the +forgetting really does not matter. The fact is that the +race is still running; <i>it has not yet been won</i>. Whose +team will win? That is what matters.</p> + +<p><a name="Page_15" id="Page_15"></a>The world is the stadium. Teams of evil run rapidly +and teams of good too.</p> + +<p>The great heroes and heroines whose story is told +in this book have run across the centuries over the +world to us. Some of them are alive to-day, as heroic +as those who have gone. But all of them say the +same thing to us of the new world who are coming +after them:</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i2">"Take the torch."<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>The greatest of them all, when he came to the very +end of his days, as he fell and passed on the Torch +to others, said:</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i2">"I have run my course."<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>But to us who are coming on as Torch-bearers after +him he spoke in urgent words—written to the people +at Corinth where the Isthmian races were run:</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i2">"Do you not know that they which run<br /></span> +<span class="i2">in a race all run, but one wins the prize?<br /></span> +<span class="i2">So run, that ye may be victors."<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3><p><a name="Page_16" id="Page_16"></a></p><p><a name="Page_17" id="Page_17"></a></p> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_1_1" id="Footnote_1_1"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1_1"><span class="label">[1]</span></a> See "The Argonauts of Faith" by Basil Mathews. (Doran.)</p></div> +</div> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="Book_One_THE_PIONEERS" id="Book_One_THE_PIONEERS"></a>Book One: THE PIONEERS</h2> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><a name="Page_18" id="Page_18"></a></p><p><a name="Page_19" id="Page_19"></a></p> +<h3><a name="CHAPTER_I" id="CHAPTER_I"></a>CHAPTER I</h3> + +<h4>THE HERO OF THE LONG TRAIL</h4> + +<h4><i>St. Paul</i></h4> + +<p class='center'>(Dates, b. A.D. 6, d. A.D. 67<a name="FNanchor_2_2" id="FNanchor_2_2"></a><a href="#Footnote_2_2" class="fnanchor">[2]</a>)</p> + + +<p><i>The Three Comrades.</i></p> + +<p>The purple shadows of three men moved ahead of +them on the tawny stones of the Roman road on the +high plateau of Asia Minor one bright, fresh morning.<a name="FNanchor_3_3" id="FNanchor_3_3"></a><a href="#Footnote_3_3" class="fnanchor">[3]</a> +They had just come out under the arched gateway +through the thick walls of the Roman city of Antioch-in-Pisidia. +The great aqueduct of stone that brought +the water to the city from the mountains on their +right<a name="FNanchor_4_4" id="FNanchor_4_4"></a><a href="#Footnote_4_4" class="fnanchor">[4]</a> looked like a string of giant camels turned to +stone.</p> + +<p>Of the three men, one was little more than a boy. +He had the oval face of his Greek father and the +glossy dark hair of his Jewish mother. The older men, +whose long tunics were caught up under their girdles to +give their legs free play in walking, were brown, grizzled, +sturdy travellers. They had walked a hundred +leagues together from the hot plains of Syria, through +the snow-swept passes of the Taurus mountains, and +over the sun-scorched levels of the high plateau.<a name="FNanchor_5_5" id="FNanchor_5_5"></a><a href="#Footnote_5_5" class="fnanchor">[5]</a> Their +<a name="Page_20" id="Page_20"></a>muscles were as tireless as whipcord. Their courage +had not quailed before robber or blizzard, the night +yells of the hyena or the stones of angry mobs.</p> + +<p>For the youth this was his first adventure out into +the glorious, unknown world. He was on the open +road with the glow of the sun on his cheek and the +sting of the breeze in his face; a strong staff in his +hand; with his wallet stuffed with food—cheese, olives, +and some flat slabs of bread; and by his side his own +great hero, Paul. Their sandals rang on the stone pavement +of the road which ran straight as a strung bowline +from the city, Antioch-in-Pisidia, away to the +west. The boy carried over his shoulder the cloak of +Paul, and carried that cloak as though it had been the +royal purple garment of the Roman Emperor himself +instead of the worn, faded, travel-stained cloak of a +wandering tent-maker.</p> + +<p>The two older men, whose names were Paul the +Tarsian and Silas, had trudged six hundred miles. +Their younger companion, whose name was "Fear +God," or Timothy as we say, with his Greek fondness +for perfect athletic fitness of the body, proudly felt the +taut, wiry muscles working under his skin.</p> + +<p>On they walked for day after day, from dawn when +the sun rose behind them to the hour when the sun +glowed over the hills in their faces. They turned +northwest and at last dropped down from the highlands +of this plateau of Asia Minor, through a long broad +valley, until they looked down across the Plain of Troy +to the bluest sea in the world.</p> + +<p><a name="Page_21" id="Page_21"></a>Timothy's eyes opened with astonishment as he +looked down on such a city as he had never seen—the +great Roman seaport of Troy. The marble Stadium, +where the chariots raced and the gladiators fought, +gleamed in the afternoon light.</p> + +<p>The three companions could not stop long to gaze. +They swung easily down the hill-sides and across the +plain into Troy, where they took lodgings.</p> + +<p>They had not been in Troy long when they met a +doctor named Luke. We do not know whether one of +them was ill and the doctor helped him; we do not +know whether Doctor Luke (who was a Greek) worshipped, +when he met them, Æsculapius, the god of +healing of the Greek people. The doctor did not live +in Troy, but was himself a visitor.</p> + +<p>"I live across the sea," Luke told his three friends—Paul, +Silas and Timothy—stretching his hand out +towards the north. "I live," he would say proudly, "in +the greatest city of all Macedonia—Philippi. It is +called after the great ruler Philip of Macedonia."</p> + +<p>Then Paul in his turn would be sure to tell Doctor +Luke what it was that had brought him across a thousand +miles of plain and mountain pass, hill and valley, +to Troy. This is how he would tell the story in such +words as he used again and again:</p> + +<p>"I used to think," he said, "that I ought to do many +things to oppose the name of Jesus of Nazareth. I had +many of His disciples put into prison and even voted +for their being put to death. I became so exceedingly +mad against them that I even pursued them to foreign +cities.</p> + +<p><a name="Page_22" id="Page_22"></a>"Then as I was journeying<a name="FNanchor_6_6" id="FNanchor_6_6"></a><a href="#Footnote_6_6" class="fnanchor">[6]</a> to Damascus, with the +authority of the chief priests themselves, at mid-day +I saw on the way a light from the sky, brighter than +the blaze of the sun, shining round about me and my +companions. And, as we were all fallen on to the road, +I heard a voice saying to me:</p> + +<p>"'Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me? It is hard +for you to kick against the goad.'</p> + +<p>"And I said, 'Who are you, Lord?'</p> + +<p>"The answer came: 'I am Jesus, whom you persecute.'"</p> + +<p>Then Paul went on:</p> + +<p>"I was not disobedient to the heavenly vision; but +I told those in Damascus and in Jerusalem and in all +Judæa, aye! and the foreign nations also, that they +should repent and turn to God.</p> + +<p>"Later on," said Paul, "I fell into a trance, and Jesus +came again to me and said, 'Go, I will send you afar to +the Nations.' That (Paul would say to Luke) is why I +walk among perils in the city; in perils in the wilderness; +in perils in the sea; in labour and work; in +hunger and thirst and cold, to tell people everywhere +of the love of God shown in Jesus Christ."<a name="FNanchor_7_7" id="FNanchor_7_7"></a><a href="#Footnote_7_7" class="fnanchor">[7]</a></p> + + +<p><i>The Call to Cross the Sea.</i></p> + +<p>One night, after one of these talks, as Paul was asleep +in Troy, he seemed to see a figure standing by him. +Surely it was the dream-figure of Luke, the doctor +from Macedonia, holding out his hands and pleading +<a name="Page_23" id="Page_23"></a>with Paul, saying, "Come over into Macedonia and help +us."</p> + +<p>Now neither Paul nor Silas nor Timothy had ever +been across the sea into the land that we now call +Europe. But in the morning, when Paul told his companions +about the dream that he had had, they all +agreed that God had called them to go and deliver the +good news of the Kingdom to the people in Luke's city +of Philippi and in the other cities of Macedonia.</p> + +<p>So they went down into the busy harbour of Troy, +where the singing sailor-men were bumping bales of +goods from the backs of camels into the holds of the +ships, and they took a passage in a little coasting ship. +She hove anchor and was rowed out through the entrance +between the ends of the granite piers of the +harbour. The seamen hoisting the sails, the little ship +went gaily out into the Ægean Sea.</p> + +<p>All day they ran before the breeze and at night anchored +under the lee of an island. At dawn they sailed +northward again with a good wind, till they saw land. +Behind the coast on high ground the columns of a temple +glowed in the sunlight. They ran into a spacious +bay and anchored in the harbour of a new city—Neapolis +as it was called—the port of Philippi.</p> + +<p>Landing from the little ship, Paul, Silas, Timothy +and Luke climbed from the harbour by a glen to the +crest of the hill, and then on, for three or four hours +of hard walking, till their sandals rang on the pavement +under the marble arch of the gate through the +wall of Philippi.</p> + +<p><a name="Page_24" id="Page_24"></a><i>Flogging and Prison.</i></p> + +<p>As Paul and his friends walked about in the city +they talked with people; for instance, with a woman +called Lydia, who also had come across the sea from +Asia Minor where she was born. She and her children +and slaves all became Christians. So the men and +women of Philippi soon began to talk about these +strange teachers from the East. One day Paul and +Silas met a slave girl dressed in a flowing, coloured +tunic. She was a fortune-teller, who earned money for +her masters by looking at people and trying to see at +a glance what they were like so that she might tell their +fortunes. The fortune-telling girl saw Paul and Silas +going along, and she stopped and called out loud so +that everyone who went by might hear: "These men +are the slaves of the Most High God. They tell you +the way of Salvation."</p> + +<p>The people stood and gaped with astonishment, and +still the girl called out the same thing, until a crowd +began to come round. Then Paul turned round and +with sternness in his voice spoke to the evil spirit in +the girl and said: "In the Name of Jesus Christ, I order +you out of her."</p> + +<p>From that day the girl lost her power to tell people's +fortunes, so that the money that used to come to +her masters stopped flowing. They were very angry +and stirred up everybody to attack Paul and Silas. A +mob collected and searched through the streets until +they found them. Then they clutched hold of their +arms and robes, shouting: "To the prætors! To the +prætors!" The prætors were great officials who sat +<a name="Page_25" id="Page_25"></a>in marble chairs in the Forum, the central square of +the city.</p> + +<p>The masters of the slave girl dragged Paul and Silas +along. At their heels came the shouting mob and when +they came in front of the prætors, the men cried out:</p> + +<p>"See these fellows! Jews as they are, they are upsetting +everything in the city. They tell people to take +up customs that are against the Law for us as Romans +to accept."</p> + +<p>"Yes! Yes!" yelled the crowd. "Flog them! Flog +them!"</p> + +<p>The prætors, without asking Paul or Silas a single +question as to whether this was true, or allowing them +to make any defence, were fussily eager to show their +Roman patriotism. Standing up they gave their +orders:</p> + +<p>"Strip them, flog them."</p> + +<p>The slaves of the prætors seized Paul and Silas and +took their robes from their backs. They were tied by +their hands to the whipping-post. The crowd gathered +round to see the foreigners thrashed.</p> + +<p>The lictors—that is the soldier-servants of the +prætors—untied their bundles of rods. Then each +lictor brought down his rod with cruel strokes on Paul +and Silas. The rods cut into the flesh and the blood +flowed down.</p> + +<p>Then their robes were thrown over their shoulders, +and the two men, with their tortured backs bleeding, +were led into the black darkness of the cell of the city +prison; shackles were snapped on to their arms, and +their feet were clapped into stocks. Their bodies +<a name="Page_26" id="Page_26"></a>ached; the other prisoners groaned and cursed; the +filthy place stank; sleep was impossible.</p> + +<p>But Paul and Silas did not groan. They sang the +songs of their own people, such as the verses that Paul +had learned—as all Jewish children did—when he was +a boy at school. For instance—</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i2">God is our refuge and strength,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">A very present help in trouble.<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Therefore will we not fear, though the earth do change,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">And though the mountains be moved in the heart of the seas;<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Though the waters thereof roar and be troubled,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Though the mountains shake with the swelling thereof.<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>As they sang there came a noise as though the mountains +really were shaking. The ground rocked; the +walls shook; the chains were loosened from the stones; +the stocks were wrenched apart; their hands and feet +were free; the heavy doors crashed open. It was an +earthquake.</p> + +<p>The jailor leapt to the entrance of the prison. The +moonlight shone on his sword as he was about to kill +himself, thinking his prisoners had escaped.</p> + +<p>"Do not harm yourself," shouted Paul. "We are +all here."</p> + +<p>"Torches! Torches!" yelled the jailor.</p> + +<p>The jailor, like all the people of his land, believed +that earthquakes were sent by God. He thought he +was lost. He turned to Paul and Silas who, he knew, +were teachers about God.</p> + +<p>"Sirs," he said, falling in fear on the ground, "what +must I do to be saved?"</p> + +<p>"Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ," they replied, +"and you and your household will all be saved."</p> + +<p>The jailor's wife then brought some oil and water, +<a name="Page_27" id="Page_27"></a>and the jailor washed the poor wounded backs of Paul +and Silas and rubbed healing oil into them.</p> + +<p>The night was now passing and the sun began to +rise. There was a tramp of feet. The lictors who had +thrashed Paul and Silas marched to the door of the +prison with an order to free them. The jailor was delighted.</p> + +<p>"The prætors have sent to set you free," he said. +"Come out then and go in peace."</p> + +<p>He had the greatest surprise in his life when, instead +of going, Paul turned and said:</p> + +<p>"No, indeed! The prætors flogged us in public in +the Forum and without a trial—flogged Roman citizens! +They threw us publicly into prison, and now +they are going to get rid of us secretly. Let the prætors +come here themselves and take us out!"</p> + +<p>Surely it was the boldest message ever sent to the +powerful prætors. But Paul knew what he was doing, +and when the Roman prætors heard the message they +knew that he was right. They would be ruined if it +were reported at Rome that they had publicly flogged +Roman citizens without trial.</p> + +<p>Their prisoner, Paul, was now their judge. They +climbed down from their marble seats and walked on +foot to the prison to plead with Paul and Silas to leave +the prison and not to tell against them what had happened.</p> + +<p>"Will you go away from the city?" they asked. "We +are afraid of other riots."</p> + +<p>So Paul and Silas consented. But they went to the +house where Lydia lived—the home in which they had +been staying in Philippi.</p> + +<p><a name="Page_28" id="Page_28"></a>Paul cheered up the other Christian folk—Lydia and +Luke and Timothy—and told them how the jailor and +his wife and family had all become Christians.</p> + +<p>"Keep the work of spreading the message here in +Philippi going strongly," said Paul to Luke and Timothy. +"Be cheerfully prepared for trouble." And then +he and Silas, instead of going back to their own land, +went out together in the morning light of the early winter +of A.D. 50, away along the Western road over the +hills to face perils in other cities in order to carry the +Good News to the people of the West.</p> + + +<p><i>The Trail of the Hero-Scout.</i></p> + +<p>So Paul the dauntless pioneer set his brave face +westwards, following the long trail across the Roman +Empire—the hero-scout of Christ. Nothing could stop +him—not scourgings nor stonings, prison nor robbers, +blizzards nor sand-storms. He went on and on till at +last, as a prisoner in Rome, he laid his head on +the block of the executioner and was slain. These are +the brave words that we hear from him as he came +near to the end:</p> + +<div class='center'> +<table border="1" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" summary=""> +<tr><td align='left'>I HAVE FOUGHT A GOOD FIGHT;<br /> +I HAVE RUN MY COURSE;<br /> +I HAVE KEPT THE FAITH.</td></tr> +</table></div> + +<p>Long years afterward, men who were Christians in +Rome carried the story of the Kingdom of Jesus Christ +across Europe to some savages in the North Sea Islands—called +Britons. Paul handed the torch from the<a name="Page_29" id="Page_29"></a> +Near East to the people in Rome. They passed the +torch on to the people of Britain—and from Britain +many years later men sailed to build up the new great +nation in America. So the torch has run from East to +West, from that day to this, and from those people of +long ago to us. But we owe this most of all to Paul, +the first missionary, who gave his life to bring the +Good News from the lands of Syria and Judæa, where +our Lord Jesus Christ lived and died and rose again.</p> + +<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3><p><a name="Page_30" id="Page_30"></a></p> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_2_2" id="Footnote_2_2"></a><a href="#FNanchor_2_2"><span class="label">[2]</span></a> The dates are, of course, conjectural; but those given are accepted by +high authorities. Paul was about forty-four at the time of this adventure.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_3_3" id="Footnote_3_3"></a><a href="#FNanchor_3_3"><span class="label">[3]</span></a> The plateau on which Lystra, Derbe, Iconium, and Antioch-in-Pisidia +stood is from 3000 to 4000 feet above sea-level.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_4_4" id="Footnote_4_4"></a><a href="#FNanchor_4_4"><span class="label">[4]</span></a> The aqueduct was standing there in 1914, when the author was at +Antioch-in-Pisidia (now called Yalowatch).</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_5_5" id="Footnote_5_5"></a><a href="#FNanchor_5_5"><span class="label">[5]</span></a> A Bible with maps attached will give the route from Antioch in Syria, +round the Gulf of Alexandretta, past Tarsus, up the Cilician Gates to +Derbe, Lystra, Iconium, and Antioch-in-Pisidia.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_6_6" id="Footnote_6_6"></a><a href="#FNanchor_6_6"><span class="label">[6]</span></a> Compare Acts ix. I-8, xxvi. 12-20.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_7_7" id="Footnote_7_7"></a><a href="#FNanchor_7_7"><span class="label">[7]</span></a> St. Paul's motive and message are developed more fully in the Author's +<i>Paul the Dauntless</i>.</p></div> +</div> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h3><a name="CHAPTER_II" id="CHAPTER_II"></a>CHAPTER II</h3> + +<h4>THE MEN OF THE SHINGLE BEACH</h4> + +<h4><i>Wilfrid of Sussex</i></h4> + +<p class='center'>(Date, born A.D. 634. Incidents A.D. 666 and 681<a name="FNanchor_8_8" id="FNanchor_8_8"></a><a href="#Footnote_8_8" class="fnanchor">[8]</a>)</p> + + +<p>Twelve hundred and fifty years ago a man named +Wilfrid sailed along the south coast of a great island in +the North Seas. With him in the ship were a hundred +and twenty companions.</p> + +<p>The voyage had started well, but now the captain +looked anxious as he peered out under his curved hand, +looking first south and then north. There was danger +in both directions.</p> + +<p>The breeze from the south stiffened to a gale. The +mast creaked and strained as the gathering storm tore +at the mainsail. The ship reeled and pitched as the +spiteful waves smote her high bow and swept hissing +and gurgling along the deck. She began to jib like a +horse and refused to obey her rudder. Wind and current +were carrying her out of her course.</p> + +<p>In spite of all the captain's sea-craft the ship was +being driven nearer to the dreaded, low, shingle beach +of the island that stretched along the northern edge of +the sea. The captain did not fear the coast itself, for +it had no rocks. But the lines deepened on his weather-scarred +face as he saw, gathering on the shelving +beach, the wild, yellow-haired men of the island.</p> + +<p><a name="Page_31" id="Page_31"></a>The ship was being carried nearer and nearer to the +coast. All on board could now see the Men of the +Shingle Beach waving their spears and axes.</p> + +<p>The current and the wind swung the ship still closer +to the shore, and now—even above the whistle of the +gale in the cordage—the crew heard the wild whoop of +the wreckers. These men on the beach were the sons of +pirates. But they were now cowards compared with +their fathers. For they no longer lived by the wild +sea-rover's fight that had made their fathers' blood leap +with the joy of the battle. They lived by a crueller +craft. Waiting till some such vessel as this was swept +ashore, they would swoop down on it, harry and slay +the men, carry the women and children off for slaves, +break up the ship and take the wood and stores for fire +and food. They were beach-combers.</p> + +<p>An extra swing of the tide, a great wave—and with a +thud the ship was aground, stuck fast on the yielding +sands. With a wild yell, and with their tawny manes +streaming in the wind, the wreckers rushed down the +beach brandishing their spears.</p> + +<p>Wilfrid, striding to the side of the ship, raised his +hand to show that he wished to speak to the chief. But +the island men rushed on like an avalanche and started +to storm the ship. Snatching up arms, poles, rope-ends—whatever +they could find—the men on board beat +down upon the heads of the savages as they climbed up +the ship's slippery side. One man after another sank +wounded on the deck. The fight grew more obstinate, +but at last the men of the beach drew back up the sands, +baffled.</p> + +<p>The Men of the Shingle Beach might have given up +<a name="Page_32" id="Page_32"></a>the battle had not a fierce priest of their god of war +leapt on to a mound of sand, and, lifting his naked arms +to the skies, called on the god to destroy the men in the +ship.</p> + +<p>The savages were seized with a new frenzy and +swept down the beach again. Wilfrid had gathered +his closest friends round him and was quietly kneeling +on the deck praying to his God for deliverance from the +enemy. The fight became desperate. Again the savages +were driven back up the beach.</p> + +<p>Once more they rallied and came swooping down on +the ship. But a pebble from the sling of a man on the +ship struck the savage priest on the forehead; he tottered +and fell on the sand. This infuriated the savages, +yet it took the heart out of these men who had +trusted in their god of war.</p> + +<p>Meanwhile the tide had been creeping up; it swung in +still further and lifted the ship from the sand; the wind +veered, the sails strained. Slowly, but with gathering +speed, the ship stood out to sea followed by howls of +rage from the men on the beach.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>Some years passed by, yet Wilfrid in all his travels +had never forgotten the Men of the Beach. And, +strangely enough, he wanted to go back to them.</p> + +<p>At last the time came when he could do so. This +time he did not visit them by sea. After he had +preached among the people in a distant part of the same +great island, Wilfrid with four faithful companions—Eappa, +Padda, Burghelm and Oiddi—walked down to +the south coast of the island.</p> + +<p>As he came to the tribe he found many of them +<a name="Page_33" id="Page_33"></a>gathered on the beach as before. But the fierceness was +gone. They tottered with weakness as they walked. +The very bones seemed ready to come through their +skin. They were starving with hunger and thirst from +a long drought, when no grain or food of any kind +would grow. And now they were gathered on the +shore, and a long row of them linked hand in hand +would rush down the very beach upon which they had +attacked Wilfrid, and would cast themselves into the +sea to get out of the awful agonies of their hunger.</p> + +<p>"Are there not fish in the sea for food?" asked +Wilfrid.</p> + +<p>"Yes, but we cannot catch them," they answered.</p> + +<p>Wilfrid showed the wondering Men of the Shingle +Beach how to make large nets and then launched out +in the little boats that they owned, and let the nets +down. For hour after hour Wilfrid and his companions +fished, while the savages watched them from +the beach with hungry eyes as the silver-shining fish +were drawn gleaming and struggling into the boats.</p> + +<p>At last, as evening drew on, the nets were drawn in +for the last time, and Wilfrid came back to the beach +with hundreds of fish in the boats. With eager joy the +Men of the Beach lit fires and cooked the fish. Their +hunger was stayed; the rain for which Wilfrid prayed +came. They were happy once more.</p> + +<p>Then Wilfrid gathered them all around him on the +beach and said words like these:</p> + +<p>"You men tried to kill me and my friends on this +beach years ago, trusting in your god of war. You +<i>failed</i>. There is no god of war. There is but one God, +a God not of war, but of Love, Who sent His only Son +<a name="Page_34" id="Page_34"></a>to tell about His love. That Son, Jesus Christ, Who +fed the hungry multitudes by the side of the sea with +fish, sent me to you to show love to you, feeding you +with fish from the sea, and feeding you with His love, +which is the Bread of Life."</p> + +<p>The wondering savages, spear in hand, shook their +matted hair and could not take it in at once. Yet they +and their boys and girls had already learned to trust +Wilfrid, and soon began to love the God of Whom he +spoke.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>Now, those savages were the great, great, great +grandfathers and mothers of the English-speaking +peoples of the world. The North Sea Island was Britain; +the beach was at Selsey near Chichester on the +South Coast. And the very fact that you and I are +alive to-day, the shelter of our homes, the fact that we +can enjoy the wind on the heath in camp, our books +and sport and school, all these things come to us through +men like Wilfrid and St. Patrick, St. Columba and St. +Ninian, St. Augustine and others who in the days of +long ago came to lift our fathers from the wretched, +quarrelsome life, and from the starving helplessness of +the Men of the Shingle Beach.</p> + +<p>The people of the North Sea Islands and of America +and the rest of the Christian world have these good +things in their life because there came to save our forefathers +heroic missionaries like Wilfrid, Columba, and +Augustine. There are to-day men of the South Sea +Islands, who are even more helpless than our Saxon +grandfathers.</p> + +<p><a name="Page_35" id="Page_35"></a>To get without giving is mean. To take the torch +and not to pass it on is to fail to play the game. We +must hand on to the others the light that has come +to us.</p> + +<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3><p><a name="Page_36" id="Page_36"></a></p> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_8_8" id="Footnote_8_8"></a><a href="#FNanchor_8_8"><span class="label">[8]</span></a> The chief authority for the story of Wilfrid is Bede.</p></div> +</div> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h3><a name="CHAPTER_III" id="CHAPTER_III"></a>CHAPTER III</h3> + +<h4>THE KNIGHT OF A NEW CRUSADE</h4> + +<h4><i>Raymund Lull</i></h4> + +<p class='center'>(Dates, b. 1234, d. 1315)</p> + + +<h4>I</h4> + +<p>A little old man, barefooted and bareheaded, and +riding upon an ass, went through the cities and towns +and villages of Europe, in the eleventh century, carrying—not +a lance, but a crucifix. When he came near +a town the word ran like a forest fire, "It is Peter the +Hermit."</p> + +<p>All the people rushed out. Their hearts burned as +they heard him tell how the tomb of Jesus Christ was +in the hand of the Moslem Turk, of how Christians +going to worship at His Tomb in Jerusalem were +thrown into prison and scourged and slain. Knights +sold lands and houses to buy horses and lances. Peasants +threw down the axe and the spade for the pike and +bow and arrows. Led by knights, on whose armour +a red Cross was emblazoned, the people poured out in +their millions for the first Crusade. It is said that in +the spring of 1096 an "expeditionary force" of six +million people was heading toward Palestine.</p> + +<p>The Crusades were caused partly by the cruelty of +the followers of Mohammed, the Moslem Turks, who +<a name="Page_37" id="Page_37"></a>believed that they could earn entrance into Paradise by +slaying infidel Christians. The Moslems every day and +five times a day turn their faces to Mecca in Arabia, +saying "There is no God but God; Mohammed is the +Prophet of God." Allah (they believe) is wise and +merciful to His own, but not holy, nor our Father, nor +loving and forgiving, nor desiring pure lives. On earth +and in Paradise women have no place save to serve men.</p> + +<p>The first Crusade ended in the capture of Jerusalem +(July 15, 1099), and Godfrey de Bouillon became King +of Jerusalem. But Godfrey refused to put a crown +upon his head. For, he said, "I will not wear a crown +of gold in the city where Our Lord Jesus Christ wore a +crown of thorns."</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>The fortunes of Christian and Moslem ebbed and flowed +for nearly two hundred years, during which time there were +seven Crusades ending at the fall of Acre into the hands +of the Turks in 1291.</p> + +<p>The way of the sword had failed, though indeed the Crusades +had probably been the means of preventing all Europe +from being overrun by the Moslems. At the time when the +last Crusade had begun a man was planning a new kind of +Crusade, different in method but calling for just as much +bravery as the old kind. We are going to hear his story now.</p></div> + + +<h4>II</h4> + +<p><i>The Young Knight's Vision</i></p> + +<p>In the far-off days of the last of the Crusades, a +knight of Majorca, in the Mediterranean Sea, stood +on the shore of his island home gazing over the water. +Raymund Lull from the beach of Palma Bay, where +he had played as a boy, now looked out southward, +where boats with their tall, rakish, brown sails ran in +from the Great Sea.</p> + +<p><a name="Page_38" id="Page_38"></a>The knight was dreaming of Africa which lay away +to the south of his island. He had heard many strange +stories from the sailors about the life in the harbours +of that mysterious African seaboard; but he had never +once in his thirty-six years set eyes upon one of its +ports.</p> + +<p>It was the year when Prince Edward of England, +out on the mad, futile adventure of the last Crusade, +was felled by the poisoned dagger of an assassin in +Nazareth, and when Eleanor (we are told) drew the +poison from the wound with her own lips. Yet Raymund +Lull, who was a knight so skilled that he could +flash his sword and set his lance in rest with any of his +peers, had not joined that Crusade. His brave father +carried the scars of a dozen battles against the Moors. +Yet, when the last Crusade swept down the Mediterranean, +Lull stood aside; for he was himself planning +a new Crusade of a kind unlike any that had gone +before.</p> + +<p>He dreamed of a Crusade not to the Holy Land but +to Africa, where the Crescent of Mohammed ruled and +where the Cross of Christ was never seen save when +an arrogant Moslem drew a cross in the sand of the +desert to spit upon it. It was the desire of Raymund +Lull's life to sail out into those perilous ports and to +face the fierce Saracens who thronged the cities. He +longed for this as other knights panted to go out to the +Holy Land as Crusaders. He was rich enough to sail +at any time, for he was his own master. Why, then, +did he not take one of the swift craft that rocked in +the bay, and sail?</p> + +<p>It was because he had not yet forged a sharp enough +<a name="Page_39" id="Page_39"></a>weapon for his new Crusade. His deep resolve was +that at all costs he would "Be Prepared" for every +counter-stroke of the Saracen whose tongue was as +swift and sharp as his scimitar.</p> + +<p>What powers do we think a man should have in +order to convince fanatical Moslems, who knew their +own sacred book—the Koran—of the truth of Christianity? +Control of his own temper, courage, patience, +knowledge of the Moslem religion and of the Bible, +suggest themselves.</p> + + +<h4>III</h4> + +<p><i>The Preparation of Temper</i></p> + +<p>So Lull turned his back on the beach and on Africa, +and plunged under the heavy shadows of the arched +gateway through the city wall up the narrow streets of +Palma. A servant opened the heavy, studded door of +his father's mansion—the house where Lull himself +was born.</p> + +<p>He hastened in and, calling to his Saracen slave, +strode to his own room. The dark-faced Moor obediently +came, bowed before his young master, and laid +out on the table manuscripts that were covered with +mysterious writing such as few people in Europe could +read.</p> + +<p>Lull was learning Arabic from this sullen Saracen +slave. He was studying the Koran—the Bible of the +Mohammedans—so that he might be able to strive with +the Saracens on their own ground. For Lull knew that +he must be master of all the knowledge of the Moslem if +he was to win his battles; just as a knight in the fighting +Crusades must be swift and sure with his sword.<a name="Page_40" id="Page_40"></a> +And this is how Lull spoke of the Crusade on which he +was to set out.</p> + +<p>"I see many knights," he said, "going to the Holy +Land beyond the seas and thinking that they can acquire +it by force of arms; but in the end all are destroyed +before they attain that which they think to +have. Whence it seems to me that the conquest of the +Holy Land ought not to be attempted except in the way +in which Christ and His Apostles achieved it, namely, +by love and prayers, and the pouring out of tears and +blood."</p> + +<p>Suddenly, as he and the Saracen slave argued together, +the Moor blurted out passionately a horrible +blasphemy against the name of Jesus. Lull's blood +was up. He leapt to his feet, leaned forward, and +caught the Moor a swinging blow on the face with his +hand. In a fury the Saracen snatched a dagger from +the folds of his robe and, leaping at Lull, drove it into +his side. Raymund fell with a cry. Friends rushed in. +The Saracen was seized and hurried away to a prison-cell, +where he slew himself.</p> + +<p>Lull, as he lay day after day waiting for his wound +to heal and remembering his wild blow at the Saracen, +realised that, although he had learned Arabic, he had +not yet learned the first lesson of his own new way of +Crusading—to be master of himself.</p> + + +<h4>IV</h4> + +<p><i>The Preparation of Courage</i></p> + +<p>So Raymund Lull (at home and in Rome and Paris) +set himself afresh to his task of preparing. At last +<a name="Page_41" id="Page_41"></a>he felt that he was ready. From Paris he rode south-east +through forest and across plain, over mountain and +pass, till the gorgeous palaces and the thousand masts +of Genoa came in sight.</p> + +<p>He went down to the harbour and found a ship that +was sailing across the Mediterranean to Africa. He +booked his passage and sent his goods with all his +precious manuscripts aboard. The day for sailing +came. His friends came to cheer him. But Lull sat +in his room trembling.</p> + +<p>As he covered his eyes with his hands in shame, he +saw the fiery, persecuting Saracens of Tunis, whom he +was sailing to meet. He knew they were glowing with +pride because of their triumphs over the Crusaders in +Palestine. He knew they were blazing with anger because +their brother Moors had been slaughtered and +tortured in Spain. He saw ahead of him the rack, the +thumb-screw, and the boot; the long years in a slimy +dungeon—at the best the executioner's scimitar. He +simply dared not go.</p> + +<p>The books were brought ashore again. The ship +sailed without Lull.</p> + +<p>"The ship has gone," said a friend to Lull. He +quivered under a torture of shame greater than the +agony of the rack. He was wrung with bitter shame +that he who had for all these years prepared for this +Crusade should now have shown the white feather. +He was, indeed, a craven knight of Christ.</p> + +<p>His agony of spirit threw him into a high fever that +kept him in his bed.</p> + +<p>Soon after he heard that another ship was sailing +for Africa.</p> + +<p><a name="Page_42" id="Page_42"></a>In spite of the protestations of his friends Lull insisted +that they should carry him to the ship. They +did so; but as the hour of sailing drew on his friends +were sure that he was so weak that he would die on the +sea before he could reach Africa. So—this time in +spite of all his pleading—they carried him ashore +again. But he could not rest and his agony of mind +made his fever worse.</p> + +<p>Soon, however, a third ship was making ready to +sail. This time Lull was carried on board and refused +to return.</p> + +<p>The ship cast off and threaded its way through the +shipping of the harbour out into the open sea.</p> + +<p>"From this moment," said Lull, "I was a new man. +All fever left me almost before we were out of sight +of land."</p> + + +<h4>V</h4> + +<p><i>The First Battle</i></p> + +<p>Passing Corsica and Sardinia, the ship slipped southward +till at last she made the yellow coast of Africa, +broken by the glorious Gulf of Tunis. She dropped +sail as she ran alongside the busy wharves of Goletta. +Lull was soon gliding in a boat through the short +ancient canal to Tunis, the mighty city which was head +of all the Western Mohammedan world.</p> + +<p>He landed and found the place beside the great +mosque where the grey-bearded scholars bowed over +their Korans and spoke to one another about the law +of Mohammed.</p> + +<p>They looked at him with amazement as he boldly +<a name="Page_43" id="Page_43"></a>came up to them and said, "I have come to talk with you +about Christ and His Way of Life, and Mohammed +and his teaching. If you can prove to me that Mohammed +is indeed <i>the</i> Prophet, I will myself become a +follower of him."</p> + +<p>The Moslems, sure of their case, called together +their wisest men and together they declaimed to Lull +what he already knew very well—the watchword that +rang out from minaret to minaret across the roofs of +the vast city as the first flush of dawn came up from the +East across the Gulf. "There is no God but God; Mohammed +is the Prophet of God."</p> + +<p>"Yes," he replied, "the Allah of Mohammed is one +and is great, but He does not love as does the Father +of Jesus Christ. He is wise, but He does not do good +to men like our God who so loved the world that He +gave His Son Jesus Christ."</p> + +<p>To and fro the argument swung till, after many +days, to their dismay and amazement the Moslems saw +some of their number waver and at last actually beginning +to go over to the side of Lull. To forsake the +Faith of Mohammed is—by their own law—to be +worthy of death. A Moslem leader hurried to the +Sultan of Tunis.</p> + +<p>"See," he said, "this learned teacher, Lull, is declaring +the errors of the Faith. He is dangerous. Let +us take him and put him to death."</p> + +<p>The Sultan gave the word of command. A body of +soldiers went out, seized Lull, dragged him through the +streets, and threw him into a dark dungeon to wait +the death sentence.</p> + +<p><a name="Page_44" id="Page_44"></a>But another Moslem who had been deeply touched +by Lull's teaching craved audience with the Sultan.</p> + +<p>"See," he said, "this learned man Lull—if he were +a Moslem—would be held in high honour, being so +brave and fearless in defence of his Faith. Do not +slay him. Banish him from Tunis."</p> + +<p>So when Lull in his dungeon saw the door flung +open and waited to be taken to his death he found to +his surprise that he was led from the dungeon through +the streets of Tunis, taken along the canal, thrust into +the hold of a ship, and told that he must go in that ship +to Genoa and never return. But the man who had +before been afraid to sail from Genoa to Tunis, now +escaped unseen from the ship that would have taken +him back to safety in order to risk his life once more. +He said to himself the motto he had written:</p> + +<div class='center'> +<table border="1" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" summary=""> +<tr><td align='center'>"HE WHO LOVES NOT, LIVES NOT! HE WHO<br /> +LIVES BY THE LIFE CANNOT DIE."</td></tr> +</table></div> + + +<p>He was not afraid now even of martyrdom. He hid +among the wharves and gathered his converts about +him to teach them more and more about Christ.</p> + + +<h4>VI</h4> + +<p><i>The Last Fight</i></p> + +<p>At last, however, seeing that he could do little in +hiding, Lull took ship to Naples. After many adventures +during a number of years, in a score of cities +and on the seas, the now white-haired Lull sailed into +<a name="Page_45" id="Page_45"></a>the curved bay of Bugia farther westward along the +African coast. In the bay behind the frowning walls +the city with its glittering mosques climbed the hill. +Behind rose two glorious mountains crowned with the +dark green of the cedar. And, far off, like giant Moors +wearing white turbans, rose the distant mountain peaks +crowned with snow.</p> + +<p>Lull passed quietly through the arch of the city gateway +which he knew so well, for among other adventures +he had once been imprisoned in this very city. He +climbed the steep street and found a friend who hid +him away. There for a year Lull taught in secret till he +felt that the time had come for him to go out boldly +and dare death itself.</p> + +<p>One day the people in the market-place of Bugia +heard a voice ring out that seemed to some of them +strangely familiar. They hurried toward the sound. +There stood the old hero with arm uplifted declaring, in +the full blaze of the North African day, the Love of +God shown in Jesus Christ His Son.</p> + +<p>The Saracens murmured. They could not answer +his arguments. They cried to him to stop, but his +voice rose ever fuller and bolder. They rushed on +him, dragged him by the cloak out of the market-place, +down the streets, under the archway to a place beyond +the city walls. There they threw back their sleeves, +took up great jagged stones and hurled these grim messengers +of hate at the Apostle of Love, till he sank +senseless to the ground.<a name="FNanchor_9_9" id="FNanchor_9_9"></a><a href="#Footnote_9_9" class="fnanchor">[9]</a></p> + +<p>It was word for word over again the story of +Stephen; the speech, the wild cries of the mob, the +<a name="Page_46" id="Page_46"></a>rush to the place beyond the city wall, the stoning.<a name="FNanchor_10_10" id="FNanchor_10_10"></a><a href="#Footnote_10_10" class="fnanchor">[10]</a></p> + +<p>Did Lull accomplish anything? He was dead; but +he had conquered. He had conquered his old self. +For the Lull who had, in a fit of temper, smitten his +Saracen slave now smiled on the men who stoned him; +and the Lull who had showed the white feather of fear +at Genoa, now defied death in the market-place of +Bugia. And in that love and heroism, in face of hate +and death, he had shown men the only way to conquer +the scimitar of Mohammed, "the way in which Christ +and His Apostles achieved it, namely, by love and prayers, +and the pouring out of tears and blood."</p> + +<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3><p><a name="Page_47" id="Page_47"></a></p> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_9_9" id="Footnote_9_9"></a><a href="#FNanchor_9_9"><span class="label">[9]</span></a> June 30. 1315.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_10_10" id="Footnote_10_10"></a><a href="#FNanchor_10_10"><span class="label">[10]</span></a> Acts vi. 8-vii. 60.</p></div> +</div> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h3><a name="CHAPTER_IV" id="CHAPTER_IV"></a>CHAPTER IV</h3> + +<h4>FRANCIS CŒUR-DE-LION</h4> + +<h4> +(<i>St. Francis of Assisi</i>)<br /></h4> + +<p class='center'>A.D. 1181-1226<br /> +(Date of Incident, 1219)<br /> +</p> + + +<h4>I</h4> + +<p>The dark blue sky of an Italian night was studded +with sparkling stars that seemed to be twinkling with +laughter at the pranks of a lively group of gay young +fellows as they came out from a house half-way up the +steep street of the little city of Assisi.</p> + +<p>As they strayed together down the street they sang +the love-songs of their country and then a rich, strong +voice rang out singing a song in French.</p> + +<p>"That is Francis Bernardone," one neighbour would +say to another, nodding his head, for Francis could +sing, not only in his native Italian, but also in French.</p> + +<p>"He lives like a prince; yet he is but the son of a +cloth merchant,—rich though the merchant be."</p> + +<p>So the neighbours, we are told, were always grumbling +about Francis, the wild spendthrift. For young +Francis dressed in silk and always in the latest fashion; +he threw his pocket-money about with a free hand. +He loved beautiful things. He was very sensitive. He +would ride a long way round to avoid seeing the dread<a name="Page_48" id="Page_48"></a>ful +face of a poor leper, and would hold his nose in his +cloak as he passed the place where the lepers lived.</p> + +<p>He was handsome in face, gallant in bearing, idle +and careless; a jolly companion, with beautiful courtly +manners. His dark chestnut hair curled over his +smooth, rather small forehead. His black twinkling +eyes looked out under level brows; his nose was straight +and finely shaped.</p> + +<p>When he laughed he showed even, white, closely set +teeth between thin and sensitive lips. He wore a short, +black beard. His arms were shortish; his fingers long +and sensitive. He was lightly built; his skin was delicate.</p> + +<p>He was witty, and his voice when he spoke was powerful +and sonorous, yet sweet-toned and very clear.</p> + +<p>For him to be the son of a merchant seemed to the +gossips of Assisi all wrong—as though a grey goose +had hatched out a gorgeous peacock.</p> + +<p>The song of the revellers passed down the street and +died away. The little city of Assisi slept in quietness +on the slopes of the Apennine Mountains under the +dark clear sky.</p> + +<p>A few nights later, however, no song of any revellers +was heard. Francis Bernardone was very ill with a +fever. For week after week his mother nursed him; +and each night hardly believed that her son would live +to see the light of the next morning. When at last the +fever left him, he was so feeble that for weeks he could +not rise from his bed. Gradually, however, he got better: +as he did so the thing that he desired most of all +in the world was to see the lovely country around<a name="Page_49" id="Page_49"></a> +Assisi;—the mountains, the Umbrian Plain beneath, +the blue skies, the dainty flowers.</p> + +<p>At last one day, with aching limbs and in great +feebleness, he crept out of doors. There were the great +Apennine Mountains on the side of which his city of +Assisi was built. There were the grand rocky peaks +pointing to the intense blue sky. There was the steep +street with the houses built of stone of a strange, delicate +pink colour, as though the light of dawn were always +on them. There were the dark green olive trees, +and the lovely tendrils of the vines. The gay Italian +flowers were blooming.</p> + +<p>Stretching away in the distance was one of the most +beautiful landscapes of the world; the broad Umbrian +Plain with its browns and greens melting in the distance +into a bluish haze that softened the lines of the +distant hills.</p> + +<p>How he had looked forward to seeing it all, to being +in the sunshine, to feeling the breeze on his hot brow! +But what—he wondered—had happened to him? He +looked at it all, but he felt no joy. It all seemed dead +and empty. He turned his back on it and crawled indoors +again, sad and sick at heart. He was sure that +he would never feel again "the wild joys of living."</p> + +<p>As Francis went back to his bed he began to think +what he should do with the rest of his life. He made +up his mind not to waste it any longer: but he did not +see clearly what he should do with it.</p> + +<p>A short time after Francis begged a young nobleman +of Assisi, who was just starting to fight in a war, if he +might go with him. The nobleman—Walter of +Brienne, agreed: so Francis bought splendid trappings +<a name="Page_50" id="Page_50"></a>for his horse, and a shield, sword and spear. His +armour and his horse's harness were more splendid +than even those of Walter. So they went clattering together +out of Assisi.</p> + +<p>But he had not gone thirty miles before he was smitten +again by fever. After sunset one evening he lay +dreamily on his bed when he seemed to hear a voice.</p> + +<p>"Francis," it asked, "what could benefit thee most, +the master or the servant, the rich man or the poor?"</p> + +<p>"The master and the rich man," answered Francis in +surprise.</p> + +<p>"Why then," went on the voice, "dost thou leave God, +Who is the Master and rich, for man, who is the servant +and poor?"</p> + +<p>"Then, Lord, what will Thou that I do?" asked +Francis.</p> + +<p>"Return to thy native town, and it shall be shown +thee there what thou shall do," said the voice.</p> + +<p>He obediently rose and went back to Assisi. He +tried to join again in the old revels, but the joy was +gone. He went quietly away to a cave on the mountain +side and there he lay—as young Mahomet had done, +you remember, five centuries before, to wonder what +he was to do.</p> + +<p>Then a vision came to him. All at once like a flash +his mind was clear, and his soul was full of joy. He +saw the love of Jesus Christ—Who had lived and suffered +and died for love of him and of all men;—that +love was to rule his own life! He had found his Captain—the +Master of his life, the Lord of his service,—Christ.</p> + +<p>Yet even now he hardly knew what to do. He went +<a name="Page_51" id="Page_51"></a>home and told his friends as well as he could of the +change in his heart.</p> + +<p>Some smiled rather pityingly and went away saying +to one another: "Poor fellow; a little mad, you can +see; very sad for his parents!"</p> + +<p>Others simply laughed and mocked.</p> + +<p>One day, very lonely and sad at heart, he clambered +up the mountain side to an old church just falling into +ruin near which, in a cavern, lived a priest. He went +into the ruin and fell on his knees.</p> + +<p>"Francis," a voice in his soul seemed to say, "dost +thou see my house going to ruin. Buckle to and repair +it."</p> + +<p>He dashed home, saddled his horse, loaded it with +rich garments and rode off to another town to sell the +goods. He sold the horse too; trudged back up the +hill and gave the fat purse to the priest.</p> + +<p>"No," said the priest, "I dare not take it unless your +father says I may."</p> + +<p>But his father, who had got rumour of what was +going on, came with a band of friends to drag Francis +home. Francis fled through the woods to a secret cave, +where he lay hidden till at last he made up his mind +to face all. He came out and walked straight towards +home. Soon the townsmen of Assisi caught sight of +him.</p> + +<p>"A madman," they yelled, throwing stones and sticks +at him. All the boys of Assisi came out and hooted +and threw pebbles.</p> + +<p>His father heard the riot and rushed out to join in +the fun. Imagine his horror when he found that it was +his own son. He yelled with rage, dashed at him and, +<a name="Page_52" id="Page_52"></a>clutching him by the robe, dragged him along, beating +and cursing him. When he got him home he locked +him up. But some days later Francis' mother let him +out, when his father was absent; and Francis climbed +the hill to the Church.</p> + +<p>The bishop called in Francis and his father to his +court to settle the quarrel.</p> + +<p>"You must give back to your father all that you +have," said he.</p> + +<p>"I will," replied Francis.</p> + +<p>He took off all his rich garments; and, clad only in a +hair-vest, he put the clothes and the purse of money at +his father's feet.</p> + +<p>"Now," he cried, "I have but one father. Henceforth +I can say in all truth 'Our Father Who art in +heaven.'"</p> + +<p>A peasant's cloak was given to Francis. He went +thus, without home or any money, a wanderer. He +went to a monastery and slaved in the kitchen. A +friend gave him a tunic, some shoes, and a stick. He +went out wandering in Italy again. He loved everybody; +he owned nothing; he wanted everyone to know +the love of Jesus as he knew and enjoyed that love.</p> + +<p>There came to Francis many adventures. He was +full of joy; he sang even to the birds in the woods. +Many men joined him as his disciples in the way of +obedience, of poverty, and of love. Men in Italy, in +Spain, in Germany and in Britain caught fire from the +flame of his simple love and careless courage. Never +had Europe seen so clear a vision of the love of Jesus. +His followers were called the Lesser Brothers (Friars +Minor).</p> + +<p><a name="Page_53" id="Page_53"></a>All who can should read the story of Francis' life: +as for us we are here going simply to listen to what +happened to him on a strange and perilous adventure.</p> + + +<h4>II</h4> + +<p>About this time people all over Europe were agog +with excitement about the Crusades. Four Crusades +had come and gone. Richard Cœur-de-Lion was dead. +But the passion for fighting against the Saracen was +still in the hearts of men.</p> + +<p>"The tomb of our Lord in Jerusalem is in the hands +of the Saracen," the cry went up over all Europe. +"Followers of Jesus Christ are slain by the scimitars +of Islam. Let us go and wrest the Holy City from the +hands of the Saracen."</p> + +<p>There was also the danger to Europe itself. The +Mohammedans ruled in Spain as well as in North +Africa, in Egypt and in the Holy Land.</p> + +<p>So rich men sold their lands to buy horses and armour +and to fit themselves and their foot soldiers for +the fray. Poor men came armed with pike and helmet +and leather jerkin. The knights wore a blood-red +cross on their white tunics. In thousands upon thousands, +with John of Brienne as their Commander-in-Chief +(the brother of that Walter of Brienne with +whom, you remember, Francis had started for the wars +as a knight), they sailed the Mediterranean to fight +for the Cross in Egypt.</p> + +<p>They attacked Egypt because the Sultan there ruled +over Jerusalem and they hoped by defeating him to +free Jerusalem at the same time.</p> + +<p><a name="Page_54" id="Page_54"></a>As Francis saw the knights going off to the Crusades +in shining armour with the trappings of their horses +all a-glitter and a-jingle, and as he thought of the lands +where the people worshipped—not the God and Father +of our Lord Jesus Christ—but the "Sultan in the +Sky," the Allah of Mahomet, his spirit caught fire +within him.</p> + +<p>Francis had been a soldier and a knight only a few +years before. He could not but feel the stir of the +Holy War in his veins,—the tingle of the desire to be +in it. He heard the stories of the daring of the Crusaders; +he heard of a great victory over the Saracens.</p> + +<p>Francis, indeed, wanted Jesus Christ to conquer men +more than he wanted anything on earth; but he knew +that men are only conquered by Jesus Christ if their +hearts are changed by Him.</p> + +<p>"Even if the Saracens are put to the sword and overwhelmed, +still they are not saved," he said to himself.</p> + +<p>As he thought these things he felt sure that he heard +them calling to him (as the Man from Macedonia had +called to St. Paul)—"Come over and help us." St. +Paul had brought the story of Jesus Christ to Europe; +and had suffered prison and scourging and at last death +by the executioner's sword in doing it; must not Francis +be ready to take the same message back again from +Europe to the Near East and to suffer for it?</p> + +<p>"I will go," he said, "but to save the Saracens, not +to slay them."</p> + +<p>He was not going out to fight, yet he had in his heart +a plan that needed him to be braver and more full of +resource than any warrior in the armies of the Crusades. +He was as much a Lion-hearted hero as Richard<a name="Page_55" id="Page_55"></a> +Cœur-de-Lion himself, and was far wiser and indeed +more powerful.</p> + +<p>So he took a close friend, Brother Illuminato, with +him and they sailed away together over the seas. They +sailed from Italy with Walter of Brienne, with one of +the Crusading contingents in many ships. Southeast +they voyaged over the blue waters of the Mediterranean +Sea.</p> + +<p>Francis talked with the Crusaders on board; and +much that they said and did made him very sad. They +squabbled with one another. The knights were arrogant +and sneered at the foot soldiers; the men-at-arms +did not trust the knights. They had the Cross +on their armour; but few of them had in their hearts +the spirit of Jesus who was nailed to the Cross.</p> + +<p>At last the long, yellow coast-line of Egypt was +sighted. Behind it lay the minarets and white roofs +of a city. They were come to the eastern mouth of the +Nile, on which stood the proud city of Damietta. The +hot rays of the sun smote down upon the army of the +Crusaders as they landed. The sky and the sea were +of an intense blue; the sand and the sun glared at one +another.</p> + +<p>Francis would just be able to hear at dawn the cry +of the muezzin from the minarets of Damietta, "Come +to prayer: there is no God but Allah and Mahomet +is his prophet. Come to prayer. Prayer is better than +sleep."</p> + +<p>John of Brienne began to muster his men in battle +array to attack the Sultan of Egypt, Malek-Kamel, a +name which means "the Perfect Prince."</p> + +<p>Francis, however, was quite certain that the attempt +<a name="Page_56" id="Page_56"></a>would be a ghastly failure. He hardly knew what to +do. So he talked it over with his friend, Brother Illuminato.</p> + +<p>"I know they will be defeated in this attempt," he +said. "But if I tell them so they will treat me as a +madman. On the other hand, if I do not tell them, +then my conscience will condemn me. What do you +think I ought to do?"</p> + +<p>"My brother," said Illuminate, "what does the judgment +of the world matter to you? If they say you are +mad it will not be the first time!"</p> + +<p>Francis, therefore, went to the Crusaders and warned +them. They laughed scornfully. The order for advance +was given. The Crusaders charged into battle. +Francis was in anguish—tears filled his eyes. The +Saracens came out and fell upon the Christian soldiers +and slaughtered them. Over 6000 of them either fell +under the scimitar or were taken prisoner. The Crusaders +were defeated.</p> + +<p>Francis' mind was now fully made up. He went to +a Cardinal, who represented the Pope, with the Crusading +Army to ask his leave to go and preach to the +Sultan of Egypt.</p> + +<p>"No," said the Cardinal, "I cannot give you leave +to go. I know full well that you would never escape +to come back alive. The Sultan of Egypt has offered a +reward of gold to any man who will bring to him the +head of a Christian. That will be your fate."</p> + +<p>"Do suffer us to go, we do not fear death," pleaded +Francis and Illuminato, again and again.</p> + +<p>"I do not know what is in your minds in this," said +<a name="Page_57" id="Page_57"></a>the Cardinal, "but beware—if you go—that your +thoughts are always to God."</p> + +<p>"We only wish to go for great good, if we can work +it," replied Francis.</p> + +<p>"Then if you wish it so much," the Cardinal at last +agreed, "you may go."</p> + +<p>So Francis and Illuminato girded their loins and +tightened their sandals and set away from the Crusading +Army towards the very camp of the enemy.</p> + +<p>As he walked Francis sang with his full, loud, clear +voice. These were the words that he sang:</p> + + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Yea though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I will fear no evil; for thou art with me;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Thy rod and thy staff, they comfort me.<br /></span> +</div></div> + + +<p>As they walked along over the sandy waste they saw +two small sheep nibbling the sparse grass growing near +the Nile.</p> + +<p>"Be of good cheer," said Francis to Illuminato, +smiling, "it is the fulfilling of the Gospel words 'Behold +I send you as sheep in the midst of wolves.'"</p> + +<p>Then there appeared some Saracen soldiers. They +were, at first, for letting the two unarmed men go by; +but, on questioning Francis, they grew angrier and +angrier.</p> + +<p>"Are you deserters from the Christian camp?" they +asked.</p> + +<p>"No," replied Francis.</p> + +<p>"Are you envoys from the commander come to plead +for peace?"</p> + +<p>"No," was the answer again.</p> + +<p>"Will you give up the infidel religion and become a +<a name="Page_58" id="Page_58"></a>true believer and say 'There is no God but Allah, and +Mahomet is his prophet?'"</p> + +<p>"No, no," cried Francis, "we are come to preach the +Good News of Jesus Christ to the Sultan of Egypt."</p> + +<p>The eyes of the Saracen soldiers opened with amazement: +they could hardly believe their ears. Their faces +flushed under their dark skins with anger.</p> + +<p>"Chain them," they cried to one another. "Beat +them—the infidels."</p> + +<p>Chains were brought and snapped upon the wrists +and ankles of Francis and Illuminato. Then they took +rods and began to beat the two men—just as Paul and +Silas had been beaten eleven centuries earlier.</p> + +<p>As the rods whistled through the air and came slashing +upon their wounded backs Francis kept crying out +one word—"Soldan—Soldan." That is "Sultan—Sultan."</p> + +<p>He thus made them understand that he wished to be +taken to their Commander-in-Chief. So they decided +to take these strange beings to Malek-Kamel.</p> + +<p>As the Sultan sat in his pavilion Francis and Illuminato +were led in. They bowed and saluted him courteously +and Malek-Kamel returned the salute.</p> + +<p>"Have you come with a message from your Commander?" +said the Sultan.</p> + +<p>"No," replied Francis.</p> + +<p>"You wish then to become Saracens—worshippers +of Allah in the name of Mahomet?"</p> + +<p>"Nay, nay," answered Francis, "Saracens we will +never be. We have come with a message from God; +it is a message that will save your life. If you die +under the law of Mahomet you are lost. We have +<a name="Page_59" id="Page_59"></a>come to tell you so: if you listen to us we will show +all this to you."</p> + +<p>The Sultan seems to have been amused and interested +rather than angry.</p> + +<p>"I have bishops and archbishops of my own," he +said, "they can tell me all that I wish to know."</p> + +<p>"Of this we are glad," replied Francis, "send and +fetch them, if you will."</p> + +<p>The Sultan agreed; he sent for eight of his Moslem +great men. When they came in he said to them: "See +these men, they have come to teach us a new faith. +Shall we listen to them?"</p> + +<p>"Sire," they answered him at once, "thou knowest +the law: thou art bound to uphold it and carry it out. +By Mahomet who gave us the law to slay infidels, we +command thee that their heads be cut off. We will not +listen to a word that they say. Off with their heads!"</p> + +<p>The great men, having given their judgment, solemnly +left the presence of the Sultan. The Sultan +turned to Francis and Illuminato.</p> + +<p>"Masters," he said to them, "they have commanded +me by Mahomet to have your heads cut off. But I will +go against the law, for you have risked your lives to +save my immortal soul. Now leave me for the time."</p> + +<p>The two Christian missionaries were led away; but +in a day or two Malek-Kamel called them to his presence +again.</p> + +<p>"If you will stay in my dominions," he said, "I will +give you land and other possessions."</p> + +<p>"Yes," said Francis, "I will stay—on one condition—that +you and your people turn to the worship of the +true God. See," he went on, "let us put it to the test.<a name="Page_60" id="Page_60"></a> +Your priests here," and he pointed to some who were +standing about, "they will not let me talk with them; +will they do something. Have a great fire lighted. I +will walk into the fire with them: the result will shew +you whose faith is the true one."</p> + +<p>As Francis suggested this idea the faces of the Moslem +leaders were transfigured with horror. They +turned and quietly walked away.</p> + +<p>"I do not think," said the Sultan with a sarcastic +smile at their retreating backs, "that any of my priests +are ready to face the flames to defend their faith."</p> + +<p>"Well, I will go <i>alone</i> into the fire," said Francis. +"If I am burned—it is because of my sins—if I am +protected by God then you will own Him as your God."</p> + +<p>"No," replied the Sultan, "I will not listen to the idea +of such a trial of your life for my soul." But he was +astonished beyond measure at the amazing faith of +Francis. So Francis withdrew from the presence of +the Sultan, who at once sent after him rich and costly +presents.</p> + +<p>"You must take them back," said Francis to the messengers; +"I will not take them."</p> + +<p>"Take them to build your churches and support your +priests," said the Sultan through his messengers.</p> + +<p>But Francis would not take any gift from the Sultan. +He left him and went back with Illuminato from the +Saracen host to the camp of the Crusaders. As he was +leaving the Sultan secretly spoke with Francis and said: +"Will you pray for me that I may be guided by an inspiration +from above that I may join myself to the religion +that is most approved by God?"</p> + +<p>The Sultan told off a band of his soldiers to go with +<a name="Page_61" id="Page_61"></a>the two men and to protect them from any molesting +till they reached the Crusaders' Camp. There is a +legend—though no one now can tell whether it is true +or not—that when the Sultan of Egypt lay dying he +sent for a disciple of Francis to be with him and pray +for him. Whether this was so or not, it is quite clear +that Francis had left in the memory of the Sultan such +a vision of dauntless faith as he had never seen before +or was ever to see again.</p> + +<p>The Crusaders failed to win Egypt or the Holy +Land; but to-day men are going from America and +Britain in the footsteps of Francis of Assisi the Christian +missionary, to carry to the people in Egypt, in the +Holy Land and in all the Near East, the message that +Francis took of the love of Jesus Christ. The stories +of some of the deeds they have done and are to-day +doing, we shall read in later chapters in this book.<br /><br /></p> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><a name="Page_62" id="Page_62"></a></p><p><a name="Page_63" id="Page_63"></a></p> +<h2><a name="Book_Two_THE_ISLAND_ADVENTURERS" id="Book_Two_THE_ISLAND_ADVENTURERS"></a><b>Book Two: THE ISLAND ADVENTURERS</b></h2> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><a name="Page_64" id="Page_64"></a></p><p><a name="Page_65" id="Page_65"></a></p> +<h3><a name="CHAPTER_V" id="CHAPTER_V"></a>CHAPTER V</h3> + +<h4>THE ADVENTUROUS SHIP</h4> + +<h4><i>The Duff</i></h4> + +<p class='center'>(Date of Incident, 1796)</p> + + +<p>A ship crept quietly down the River Thames on an +ebb-tide. She was slipping out from the river into the +estuary when suddenly a challenge rang out across the +grey water.</p> + +<p>"What ship is that?"</p> + +<p>"<i>The Duff</i>," was the answer that came back from the +little ship whose captain had passed through a hundred +hairsbreadth escapes in his life but was now starting on +the strangest adventure of them all.</p> + +<p>"Whither bound?" came the challenge again from +the man-o'-war that had hailed them.</p> + +<p>"Otaheite," came the answer, which would startle +the Government officer. For Tahiti<a name="FNanchor_11_11" id="FNanchor_11_11"></a><a href="#Footnote_11_11" class="fnanchor">[11]</a> (as we now call +it) was many thousands of miles away in the heart of +the South Pacific Ocean. Indeed it had only been discovered +by Captain Cook twenty-eight years earlier in +1768. <i>The Duff</i> was a small sailing-ship such as one +of our American ocean liners of to-day could put into +her dining saloon.</p> + +<p>"What cargo?" The question came again from the +officer on the man-o'-war.</p> + +<p><a name="Page_66" id="Page_66"></a>"Missionaries and provisions," was Captain Wilson's +answer.</p> + +<p>The man-o'-war's captain was puzzled. He did not +know what strange beings might be meant by missionaries. +He was suspicious. Were they pirates, perhaps, +in disguise!</p> + +<p>We can understand how curious it would sound to +him when we remember that (although Wilfrid and +Augustine and Columba had gone to Britain as missionaries +over a thousand years before <i>The Duff</i> started +down the Thames) no cargo of missionaries had ever +before sailed from those North Sea Islands of Britain +to the savages of other lands like the South Sea Islands.</p> + +<p>There was a hurried order and a scurry on board the +Government ship. A boat was let down into the +Thames, and half a dozen sailors tumbled into her and +rowed to <i>The Duff.</i> What did the officer find?</p> + +<p>He was met at the rail by a man who had been +through scores of adventures, Captain Wilson. The +son of the captain of a Newcastle collier, Wilson had +grown up a dare-devil sailor boy. He enlisted as a +soldier in the American war, became captain of a vessel +trading with India, and was then captured and imprisoned +by the French in India. He escaped from prison +by climbing a great wall, and dropping down forty feet +on the other side. He plunged into a river full of alligators, +and swam across, escaping the jaws of alligators +only to be captured on the other bank by Indians, +chained and made to march barefoot for 500 miles. +Then he was thrust into Hyder Ali's loathsome prison, +starved and loaded with irons, and at last at the end of +two years was set free.</p> + +<p><a name="Page_67" id="Page_67"></a>This was the daring hero who had now undertaken +to captain the little <i>Duff</i> across the oceans of the world +to the South Seas. With Captain Wilson, the man-o'-war +officer found also six carpenters, two shoemakers, +two bricklayers, two sailors, two smiths, two weavers, a +surgeon, a hatter, a shopkeeper, a cotton factor, a cabinet-maker, +a draper, a harness maker, a tin worker, a +butcher and four ministers. But they were all of them +missionaries. With them were six children.</p> + +<p>All up and down the English Channel French +frigates sailed like hawks waiting to pounce upon their +prey; for England was at war with France in those +days. So for five weary weeks <i>The Duff</i> anchored in +the roadstead of Spithead till, as one of a fleet of fifty-seven +vessels, she could sail down the channel and +across the Bay of Biscay protected by British men-o'-war. +Safely clear of the French cruisers, <i>The Duff</i> +held on alone till the cloud-capped mountain-heights of +Madeira hove in sight.</p> + +<p>Across the Atlantic she stood, for the intention was +to sail round South America into the Pacific. But on +trying to round the Cape Horn <i>The Duff</i> met such +violent gales that Captain Wilson turned her in her +tracks and headed back across the Atlantic for the +Cape of Good Hope.</p> + +<p>Week after week for thousands and thousands of +miles she sailed. She had travelled from Rio de Janiero +over 10,000 miles and had only sighted a single +sail—a longer journey than any ship had ever sailed +without seeing land.</p> + +<p>"Shall we see the island to-day?" the boys on board +<a name="Page_68" id="Page_68"></a>would ask Captain Wilson. Day after day he shook +his head. But one night he said:</p> + +<p>"If the wind holds good to-night we shall see an +island in the morning, but not the island where we shall +stop."</p> + +<p>"Land ho!" shouted a sailor from the masthead in +the morning, and, sure enough, they saw away on the +horizon, like a cloud on the edge of the sea, the island +of Toobonai.<a name="FNanchor_12_12" id="FNanchor_12_12"></a><a href="#Footnote_12_12" class="fnanchor">[12]</a></p> + +<p>As they passed Toobonai the wind rose and howled +through the rigging. It tore at the sail of <i>The Duff,</i> +and the great Pacific waves rolled swiftly by, rushing +and hissing along the sides of the little ship and tossing +her on their foaming crests. But she weathered the +storm, and, as the wind dropped, and they looked +ahead, they saw, cutting into the sky-line, the mountain +tops of Tahiti.</p> + +<p>It was Saturday night when the island came in sight. +Early on the Sunday morning by seven o'clock <i>The +Duff</i> swung round under a gentle breeze into Matavai<a name="FNanchor_13_13" id="FNanchor_13_13"></a><a href="#Footnote_13_13" class="fnanchor">[13]</a> +Bay and dropped anchor. But before she could even +anchor the whole bay had become alive with Tahitians. +They thronged the beach, and, leaping into canoes, sent +them skimming across the bay to the ship.</p> + +<p>Captain Wilson, scanning the canoes swiftly and +anxiously, saw with relief that the men were not armed. +But the missionaries were startled when the savages +climbed up the sides of the ship, and with wondering +eyes rolling in their wild heads peered over the rail of +the deck. They then leapt on board and began dancing +<a name="Page_69" id="Page_69"></a>like mad on the deck with their bare feet. From the +canoes the Tahitians hauled up pigs, fowl, fish, bananas, +and held them for the white men to buy. But Captain +Wilson and all his company would not buy on that day—for +it was Sunday.</p> + +<p>The missionaries gathered together on deck to hold +their Sunday morning service. The Tahitians stopped +dancing and looked on with amazement, as the company +of white men with their children knelt to pray and then +read from the Bible.</p> + +<p>The Tahitians could not understand this strange +worship, with no god that could be seen. But when the +white fathers and mothers and children sang, the savages +stood around with wonder and delight on their +faces as they listened to the strange and beautiful +sounds.</p> + +<p>But the startling events of the day were not over. +For out from the beach came a canoe across the bay, +and in it two Swedish sailors, named, like some fishermen +of long ago, Peter and Andrew. These white men +knew some English, but lived, not as Christians, but as +the natives lived.</p> + +<p>And after them came a great and aged chief named +Haamanemane.<a name="FNanchor_14_14" id="FNanchor_14_14"></a><a href="#Footnote_14_14" class="fnanchor">[14]</a> This great chief went up to the +"chief" of the ship, Captain Wilson, and called out to +him "Taio."<a name="FNanchor_15_15" id="FNanchor_15_15"></a><a href="#Footnote_15_15" class="fnanchor">[15]</a></p> + +<p>They did not know what this meant, till Peter the +Swede explained that Haamanemane wished to be the +brother—the troth-friend of Captain Wilson. They +were even to change names. Captain Wilson would be +<a name="Page_70" id="Page_70"></a>called Haamanemane, and Haamanemane would be +called Wilson.</p> + +<p>So Captain Wilson said "Taio," and he and the chief, +who was also high priest of the gods of Tahiti, were +brothers.</p> + +<p>Captain Wilson said to Haamanemane, through +Peter, who translated each to the other:</p> + +<p>"We wish to come and live in this island."</p> + +<p>Haamanemane said that he would speak to the king +and queen of Tahiti about it. So he got down again +over the side of the vessel into the canoe, and the paddles +of his boatman flashed as they swept along over the +breakers to the beach to tell the king of the great white +chief who had come to visit them.</p> + +<p>All these things happened on the Sunday. On Tuesday +word came that the king and the queen would receive +them. So Captain Wilson and all his missionaries +got into the whale-boat and pulled for the shore. The +natives rushed into the water, seized the boat and +hauled her aground out of reach of the great waves.</p> + +<p>They were startled to see the king and queen come +riding on the shoulders of men. Even when one bearer +grew tired and the king or the queen must get upon +another, they were not allowed to touch the ground. +The reason was that all the land they touched became +their own, and the people carried them about so that +they themselves might not lose their land and houses +by the king and queen touching them.</p> + +<p>So at that place, under the palm trees of Tahiti, with +the beating of the surf on the shore before them, and +the great mountain forests behind, these brown island<a name="Page_71" id="Page_71"></a>ers +of the South Seas gave a part of their land to Captain +Wilson and his men that they might live there.</p> + +<p>The sons of the wild men of the North Sea Islands +had met their first great adventure in bringing to the +men of the South Sea Islands the story of the love of +the Father of all.</p> + +<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3><p><a name="Page_72" id="Page_72"></a></p> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_11_11" id="Footnote_11_11"></a><a href="#FNanchor_11_11"><span class="label">[11]</span></a> Ta-hee-tee.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_12_12" id="Footnote_12_12"></a><a href="#FNanchor_12_12"><span class="label">[12]</span></a> Too-bō-nă-ee.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_13_13" id="Footnote_13_13"></a><a href="#FNanchor_13_13"><span class="label">[13]</span></a> Mă-tă-vă-ee.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_14_14" id="Footnote_14_14"></a><a href="#FNanchor_14_14"><span class="label">[14]</span></a> Haa-mă-nāy-mă-này.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_15_15" id="Footnote_15_15"></a><a href="#FNanchor_15_15"><span class="label">[15]</span></a> Ta-ce-ō.</p></div> +</div> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h3><a name="CHAPTER_VI" id="CHAPTER_VI"></a>CHAPTER VI</h3> + +<h4>THE ISLAND BEACON FIRES</h4> + +<p class='center'><i>Papeiha</i><a name="FNanchor_16_16" id="FNanchor_16_16"></a><a href="#Footnote_16_16" class="fnanchor">[16]</a></p> + +<p class='center'>(Date of Incident, 1823)</p> + + +<p>The edge of the sea was just beginning to gleam with +the gold of the rising sun. The captain of a little ship, +that tossed and rolled on the tumbling ocean, looked out +anxiously over the bow. Around him everywhere was +the wild waste of the Pacific Ocean. Through day +after day he had tacked and veered, baffled by contrary +winds. Now, with little food left in the ship, starvation +on the open ocean stared them in the face.</p> + +<p>They were searching for an island of which they had +heard, but which they had never seen.</p> + +<p>The captain searched the horizon again, but he saw +nothing, except that ahead of him, on the sky-line to +the S.W., great clouds had gathered. He turned round +and went to the master-missionary—the hero and explorer +and shipbuilder, John Williams, saying:</p> + +<p>"We must give up the search or we shall all be +starved."</p> + +<p>John Williams knew that this was true; yet he hated +the thought of going back. He was a scout exploring +at the head of God's navy. He had left his home in +London and with his young wife had sailed across the +<a name="Page_73" id="Page_73"></a>world to the South Seas to carry the Gospel of Jesus +Christ to the people there. He was living on the island +of Raiatea: but as he himself said, "I cannot be confined +within the limits of a single reef." He wanted +to pass on the torch to other islands. So he was now +on this voyage of discovery.</p> + +<p>It was seven o'clock when the captain told John +Williams that they must give up the search.</p> + +<p>"In an hour's time," said Williams, "we will turn +back if we have not sighted Rarotonga."</p> + +<p>So they sailed on. The sun climbed the sky, the cool +dawn was giving way to the heat of day.</p> + +<p>"Go up the mast and look ahead," said Williams to a +South Sea Island native. Then he paced the deck, hoping +to hear the cry of "Land," but nothing could the +native see.</p> + +<p>"Go up again," cried Williams a little later. And +again there was nothing. Four times the man climbed +the mast, and four times he reported only sea and sky +and cloud. Gradually the sun's heat had gathered up +the great mountains of cloud, and the sky was clear to +the edge of the ocean. Then there came a sudden cry +from the masthead:</p> + +<p>"Teie teie, taua fenua, nei!"<a name="FNanchor_17_17" id="FNanchor_17_17"></a><a href="#Footnote_17_17" class="fnanchor">[17]</a></p> + +<p>"Here, here is the land we have been seeking."</p> + +<p>All rushed to the bows. As the ship sailed on and +they came nearer, they saw a lovely island. Mountains, +towering peak on peak, with deep green valleys between +brown rocky heights hung with vines, and the great +ocean breakers booming in one white line of foaming +<a name="Page_74" id="Page_74"></a>surf on the reef of living coral, made it look like a +vision of fairyland.</p> + +<p>They had discovered Rarotonga.</p> + +<p>But what of the people of the island?</p> + +<p>They were said to be cannibals.</p> + +<p>Would they receive the missionaries with clubs and +spears? Who would go ashore?</p> + +<p>On board the ship were brown South Sea men from +the island where John Williams lived. They had +burned their idols, and now they too were missionaries +of Jesus Christ. Their leader was a fearless young +man, Papeiha. He was so daring that once, when +everybody else was afraid to go from the ship to a cannibal +island, he bound his Bible in his loin cloth, tied +them to the top of his head, and swam ashore, defying +the sharks, and unafraid of the still more cruel islanders.</p> + +<p>So at Rarotonga, when the call came, "Who will go +ashore?" and a canoe was let down from the ship's side, +two men, Papeiha and his friend Vahineino,<a name="FNanchor_18_18" id="FNanchor_18_18"></a><a href="#Footnote_18_18" class="fnanchor">[18]</a> leapt into +it. Those two fearlessly paddled towards the shore, +which was now one brown stretch of Rarotongans +crowded together to see this strange ship with wings +that had sailed from over the sea's edge.</p> + +<p>The Rarotongans seemed friendly; so Papeiha and +Vahineino, who knew the ways of the water from babyhood +and could swim before they could walk, waited for +a great Pacific breaker, and then swept in on her foaming +crest. The canoe grated on the shore. They walked +up the beach under the shade of a grove of trees and +<a name="Page_75" id="Page_75"></a>said to the Rarotongan king, Makea,<a name="FNanchor_19_19" id="FNanchor_19_19"></a><a href="#Footnote_19_19" class="fnanchor">[19]</a> and his people:</p> + +<p>"We have come to tell you that many of the islands +of the sea have burned their idols. Once we in those +islands pierced each other with spears and beat each +other to death with clubs; we brutally treated our +women, and the children taken in war were strung together +by their ears like fish on a line. To-day we come—before +you have destroyed each other altogether in +your wars—to tell you of the great God, our Father, +who through His Son Jesus Christ has taught us how +to live as brothers."</p> + +<p>King Makea said he was pleased to hear these things, +and came in his canoe to the ship to take the other +native teachers on shore with him. The ship stood off +for the night, for the ocean there is too deep for anchorage.</p> + +<p>Papeiha and his brown friends, with their wives, +went ashore. Night fell, and they were preparing to +sleep, when, above the thud and hiss of the waves they +heard the noise of approaching crowds. The footsteps +and the talking came nearer, while the little group of +Christians listened intently. At last a chief, carried by +his warriors, came near. He was the fiercest and most +powerful chief on the island.</p> + +<p>When he came close to Papeiha and his friends, the +chief demanded that the wife of one of the Christian +teachers should be given to him, so that he might take +her away with him as his twentieth wife. The teachers +argued with the chief, the woman wept; but he ordered +the woman to be seized and taken off. She resisted, as +<a name="Page_76" id="Page_76"></a>did the others. Their clothes were torn to tatters by +the ferocious Rarotongans. All would have been over +with the Christians, had not Tapairu,<a name="FNanchor_20_20" id="FNanchor_20_20"></a><a href="#Footnote_20_20" class="fnanchor">[20]</a> a brave Rarotongan +woman and the cousin of the king, opposed the +chiefs and even fought with her hands to save the +teacher's wife. At last the fierce chief gave in, and +Papeiha and his friends, before the sun had risen, hurried +to the beach, leapt into their canoe and paddled +swiftly to the ship.</p> + +<p>"We must wait and come to this island another day +when the people are more friendly," said every one—except +Papeiha, who never would turn back. "Let me +stay with them," said he.</p> + +<p>He knew that he might be slain and eaten by the savage +cannibals on the island. But without fuss, leaving +everything he had upon the ship except his clothes and +his native Testament, he dropped into his canoe, seized +the paddle, and with swift, strong strokes that never +faltered, drove the canoe skimming over the rolling +waves till it leapt to the summit of a breaking wave and +ground upon the shore.</p> + +<p>The savages came jostling and waving spears and +clubs as they crowded round him.</p> + +<p>"Let us take him to Makea."</p> + +<p>So Papeiha was led to the chief. As he walked he +heard them shouting to one another, "I'll have his hat," +"I'll have his jacket," "I'll have his shirt."</p> + +<p>At length he reached the chief, who looked and said, +"Speak to us, O man, that we may know why you persist +in coming."</p> + +<p>"I come," he answered, looking round on all the +<a name="Page_77" id="Page_77"></a>people, "so that you may all learn of the true God, and +that you, like all the people in the far-off islands of the +sea, may take your gods made of wood, of birds' feathers +and of cloth, and burn them."</p> + +<p>A roar of anger and horror burst from the people. +"What!" they cried, "burn the gods! What gods +shall we then have? What shall we do without the +gods?"</p> + +<p>They were angry, but there was something in the bold +face of Papeiha that kept them from slaying him. They +allowed him to stay, and did not kill him.</p> + +<p>Soon after this, Papeiha one day heard shrieking and +shouting and wild roars as of men in a frenzy. He saw +crowds of people round the gods offering food to them; +the priests with faces blackened with charcoal and with +bodies painted with stripes of red and yellow, the warriors +with great waving head-dresses of birds' feathers +and white sea-shells. Papeiha, without taking any +thought of the peril that he rushed into, went into the +midst of the people and said:</p> + +<p>"Why do you act so foolishly? Why do you take a +log of wood and carve it, and then offer it food? It is +only fit to be burned. Some day soon you shall make +these very gods fuel for fire." So with the companion +who came to help him, brown Papeiha went in and out +of the island just as brave Paul went in and out in the +island of Cyprus and Wilfrid in Britain. He would +take his stand, now under a grove of bananas on a great +stone, and now in a village, where the people from the +huts gathered round, and again on the beach, where he +would lift up his voice above the boom of the ocean +<a name="Page_78" id="Page_78"></a>breakers to tell the story of Jesus. And some of those +degraded savages became Christians.</p> + +<p>One day he was surprised to see one of the priests +come to him leading his ten-year-old boy.</p> + +<p>"Take care of my boy," said the priest. "I am going +to burn my god, and I do not want my god's anger to +hurt the boy. Ask your God to protect him." So the +priest went home.</p> + +<p>Next morning quite early, before the heat of the sun +was great, Papeiha looked out and saw the priest tottering +along with bent and aching shoulders. On his +back was his cumbrous wooden god. Behind the priest +came a furious crowd, waving their arms and crying +out:</p> + +<p>"Madman, madman, the god will kill you."</p> + +<p>"You may shout," answered the priest, "but you will +not change me. I am going to worship Jehovah, the +God of Papeiha." And with that he threw down the +god at the feet of the teachers. One of them ran and +brought a saw, and first cut off its head and then sawed +it into logs. Some of the Rarotongans rushed away +in dread. Others—even some of the newly converted +Christians—hid in the bush and peered through the +leaves to see what would happen. Papeiha lit a fire; +the logs were thrown on; the first Rarotongan idol was +burned.</p> + +<p>"You will die," cried the priests of the fallen god. +But to show that the god was just a log of wood, the +teachers took a bunch of bananas, placed them on the +ashes where the fire had died down, and roasted them. +Then they sat down and ate the bananas.</p> + +<p>The watching, awe-struck people looked to see the +<a name="Page_79" id="Page_79"></a>teachers fall dead, but nothing happened. The islanders +then began to wonder whether, after all, the God of +Papeiha was not the true God. Within a year they had +got together hundreds of their wooden idols, and had +burned them in enormous bonfires which flamed on the +beach and lighted up the dark background of trees. +Those bonfires could be seen far out across the Pacific +Ocean, like a beacon light.</p> + +<p>To-day the flames of love which Papeiha bravely +lighted, through perils by water and club and cannibal +feast, have shone right across the ocean, and some of +the grandchildren of those very Rarotongans who +were cannibals when Papeiha went there, have sailed +away, as we shall see later on, to preach Papeiha's gospel +of the love of God to the far-off cannibal Papuans +on the steaming shores of New Guinea.</p> + +<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3><p><a name="Page_80" id="Page_80"></a></p> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_16_16" id="Footnote_16_16"></a><a href="#FNanchor_16_16"><span class="label">[16]</span></a> Pă-pay-ee-hă.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_17_17" id="Footnote_17_17"></a><a href="#FNanchor_17_17"><span class="label">[17]</span></a> Tay-ee-ay: ta-oo-a: fay-noo-ă: nay-ee.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_18_18" id="Footnote_18_18"></a><a href="#FNanchor_18_18"><span class="label">[18]</span></a> Va-hee-nay-ee-nō.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_19_19" id="Footnote_19_19"></a><a href="#FNanchor_19_19"><span class="label">[19]</span></a> Mă-kay-ă.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_20_20" id="Footnote_20_20"></a><a href="#FNanchor_20_20"><span class="label">[20]</span></a> Tă-pā-ee-roo.</p></div> +</div> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h3><a name="CHAPTER_VII" id="CHAPTER_VII"></a>CHAPTER VII</h3> + +<h4>THE DAYBREAK CALL</h4> + +<p class='center'><i>John Williams</i><br /> +(Date of Incident, 1839)</p> + + +<p>Two men leaned on the rail of the brig <i>Camden</i> as +she swept slowly along the southern side of the Island +of Erromanga in the Western Pacific. A steady breeze +filled her sails. The sea heaved in long, silky billows. +The red glow of the rising sun was changing to the +full, clear light of morning.</p> + +<p>The men, as they talked, scanned the coast-line +closely. There was the grey, stone-covered beach, and, +behind the beach, the dense bush and the waving fronds +of palms. Behind the palms rose the volcanic hills of +the island. The elder man straightened himself and +looked keenly to the bay from which a canoe was +swiftly gliding.</p> + +<p>He was a broad, sturdy man, with thick brown hair +over keen watchful eyes. His open look was fearless +and winning. His hands, which grasped the rail, had +both the strength and the skill of the trained mechanic +and the writer. For John Williams could build a ship, +make a boat and sail them both against any man in all +the Pacific. He could work with his hammer at the +forge in the morning, make a table at his joiner's bench +in the afternoon, preach a powerful sermon in the +<a name="Page_81" id="Page_81"></a>evening, and write a chapter of the most thrilling of +books on missionary travel through the night. Yet next +morning would see him in his ship, with her sails +spread, moving out into the open Pacific, bound for a +distant island.</p> + +<p>"It is strange," Williams was saying to his friend +Mr. Cunningham, "but I have not slept all through the +night."</p> + +<p>How came it that this man, who for over twenty +years had faced tempests by sea, who had never flinched +before perils from savage men and from fever, on the +shores of a hundred islands in the South Seas, should +stay awake all night as his ship skirted the strange +island of Erromanga?</p> + +<p>It was because, having lived for all those years +among the coral islands of the brown Polynesians of +the Eastern Pacific, he was now sailing to the New +Hebrides, where the fierce black cannibal islanders of +the Western Pacific slew one another. As he thought +of the fierce men of Erromanga he thought of the waving +forests of brown hands he had seen, the shouts of +"Come back again to us!" that he had heard as he left +his own islands. He knew how those people loved him +in the Samoan Islands, but he could not rest while +others lay far off who had never heard the story of +Jesus. "I cannot be content," he said, "within the narrow +limits of a single reef."</p> + +<p>But the black islanders were wild men who covered +their dark faces with soot and painted their lips with +flaming red, yet their cruel hearts were blacker than +their faces, and their anger more fiery than their scarlet +lips. They were treacherous and violent savages who +<a name="Page_82" id="Page_82"></a>would smash a skull by one blow with a great club; or +leaping on a man from behind, would cut through his +spine with a single stroke of their tomahawks, and then +drag him off to their cannibal oven.</p> + +<p>John Williams cared so much for his work of telling +the islanders about God their Father, that he lay awake +wondering how he could carry it on among these wild +people. It never crossed his mind that he should hold +back to save himself from danger. It was for this +work that he had crossed the world.</p> + +<p>"Let down the whale-boat." His voice rang out +without a tremor of fear. His eyes were on the canoe +in which three black Erromangans were paddling across +the bay. As the boat touched the water, he and the +crew of four dropped into her, with Captain Morgan +and two friends, Harris and Cunningham. The oars +dipped and flashed in the morning sun as the whale-boat +flew along towards the canoe. When they reached +it, Williams spoke in the dialects of his other islands, +but none could the three savages in the canoe understand. +So he gave them some beads and fish-hooks as +a present to show that he was a friend and again his +boat shot away toward the beach.</p> + +<p>They pulled to a creek where a brook ran down in a +lovely valley between two mountains. On the beach +stood some Erromangan natives, with their eyes (half +fierce, half frightened) looking out under their matted +jungle of hair.</p> + +<p>Picking up a bucket from the boat, Williams held it +out to the chief and made signs to show that he wished +for water from the brook. The chief took the bucket, +and, turning, ran up the beach and disappeared. For a +<a name="Page_83" id="Page_83"></a>quarter of an hour they waited; and for half an hour. +At last, when the sun was now high in the sky, the +chief returned with the water.</p> + +<p>Williams drank from the water to show his friendliness. +Then his friend, Harris, swinging himself over +the side of the boat, waded ashore through the cool, +sparkling, shallow water and sat down. The natives +ran away, but soon came back with cocoa-nuts and +opened them for him to drink.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>"See," said Williams, "there are boys playing on the +beach; that is a good sign."</p> + +<p>"Yes," answered Captain Morgan, "but there are no +women, and when the savages mean mischief they send +their women away."</p> + +<p>Williams now waded ashore and Cunningham followed +him. Captain Morgan stopped to throw out the +anchor of his little boat and then stepped out and went +ashore, leaving his crew of four brown islanders resting +on their oars.</p> + +<p>Williams and his two companions scrambled up the +stony beach over the grey stones and boulders alongside +the tumbling brook for over a hundred yards. +Turning to the right they were lost to sight from the +water-edge. Captain Morgan was just following them +when he heard a terrified yell from the crew in the +boat.</p> + +<p>Williams and his friends had gone into the bush, +Harris in front, Cunningham next, and Williams last. +Suddenly Harris, who had disappeared in the bush, +rushed out followed by yelling savages with clubs. +Harris rushed down the bank of the brook, stumbled, +<a name="Page_84" id="Page_84"></a>and fell in. The water dashed over him, and the Erromangans, +with the red fury of slaughter in their +eyes, leapt in and beat in his skull with clubs.</p> + +<p>Cunningham, with a native at his heels with lifted +club, stooped, picked up a great pebble and hurled it +full at the savage who was pursuing him. The man +was stunned. Turning again, Cunningham leapt safely +into the boat.</p> + +<p>Williams, leaving the brook, had rushed down the +beach to leap into the sea. Reaching the edge of the +water, where the beach falls steeply into the sea, he +slipped on a pebble and fell into the water.</p> + +<p>Cunningham, from the boat, hurled stones at the +natives rushing at Williams, who lay prostrate in the +water with a savage over him with uplifted club. The +club fell, and other Erromangans, rushing in, beat him +with their clubs and shot their arrows into him until the +ripples of the beach ran red with his blood.</p> + +<p>The hero who had carried the flaming torch of peace +on earth to the savages on scores of islands across the +great Pacific Ocean was dead—the first martyr of Erromanga.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>When <i>The Camden</i> sailed back to Samoa, scores of +canoes put out to meet her. A brown Samoan guided +the first canoe.</p> + +<p>"Missi William," he shouted.</p> + +<p>"He is dead," came the answer.</p> + +<p>The man stood as though stunned. He dropped +his paddle; he drooped his head, and great tears +welled out from the eyes of this dark islander and +ran down his cheeks.</p> + +<p><a name="Page_85" id="Page_85"></a>The news spread like wildfire over the islands, and +from all directions came the natives crying in +multitudes:</p> + +<p>"Aue,<a name="FNanchor_21_21" id="FNanchor_21_21"></a><a href="#Footnote_21_21" class="fnanchor">[21]</a> Williamu, Aue, Tama!" (Alas, Williams, +Alas, our Father!)</p> + +<p>And the chief Malietoa,<a name="FNanchor_22_22" id="FNanchor_22_22"></a><a href="#Footnote_22_22" class="fnanchor">[22]</a> coming into the presence of +Mrs. Williams, cried:</p> + +<p>"Alas, Williamu, Williamu, our father, our father! +He has turned his face from us! We shall never see +him more! He that brought us the good word of Salvation +is gone! O cruel heathen, they know not what +they did! How great a man they have destroyed!"</p> + +<p>John Williams, the torch-bearer of the Pacific, whom +the brown men loved, the great pioneer, who dared +death on the grey beach of Erromanga, sounds a morning +bugle-call to us, a Reveillè to our slumbering +camps:</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i10">"The daybreak call,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Hark how loud and clear I hear it sound;<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Swift to your places, swift to the head of the army,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Pioneers, O Pioneers!"<a name="FNanchor_23_23" id="FNanchor_23_23"></a><a href="#Footnote_23_23" class="fnanchor">[23]</a><br /></span> +</div></div> + +<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3><p><a name="Page_86" id="Page_86"></a></p> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_21_21" id="Footnote_21_21"></a><a href="#FNanchor_21_21"><span class="label">[21]</span></a> A-oo-ay.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_22_22" id="Footnote_22_22"></a><a href="#FNanchor_22_22"><span class="label">[22]</span></a> Mă-lee-ay-to-ă.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_23_23" id="Footnote_23_23"></a><a href="#FNanchor_23_23"><span class="label">[23]</span></a> Walt Whitman.</p></div> +</div> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h3><a name="CHAPTER_VIII" id="CHAPTER_VIII"></a>CHAPTER VIII</h3> + +<h4>KAPIOLANI, THE HEROINE OF HAWAII</h4> + +<p class='center'><i>Kapiolani</i></p> + +<p class='center'>(Date of Incident, 1824)</p> + + +<p>"Pélé<a name="FNanchor_24_24" id="FNanchor_24_24"></a><a href="#Footnote_24_24" class="fnanchor">[24]</a> the all-terrible, the fire goddess, will hurl +her thunder and her stones, and will slay you," cried +the angry priests of Hawaii.<a name="FNanchor_25_25" id="FNanchor_25_25"></a><a href="#Footnote_25_25" class="fnanchor">[25]</a> "You no longer pay +your sacrifices to her. Once you gave her hundreds +of hogs, but now you give nothing. You worship the +new God Jehovah. She, the great Pélé, will come upon +you, she and the Husband of Thunder, with the Fire-Thruster, +and the Red-Fire Cloud-Queen, they will destroy +you altogether."</p> + +<p>The listening Hawaiians shuddered as they saw the +shaggy priests calling down the anger of Pélé. One of +the priests was a gigantic man over six feet five inches +high, whose strength was so terrible that he could leap +at his victims and break their bones by his embrace.</p> + +<p>Away there in the volcanic island<a name="FNanchor_26_26" id="FNanchor_26_26"></a><a href="#Footnote_26_26" class="fnanchor">[26]</a> in the centre of +the greatest ocean in the world—the Pacific Ocean—they +had always as children been taught to fear the +great goddess.</p> + +<p>They were Christians; but they had only been Christians +for a short time, and they still trembled at the +<a name="Page_87" id="Page_87"></a>name of the goddess Pélé, who lived up in the mountains +in the boiling crater of the fiery volcano, and +ruled their island.</p> + +<p>Their fathers had told them how she would get +angry, and would pour out red-hot rivers of molten +stone that would eat up all the trees and people and run +hissing into the Pacific Ocean. There to that day was +that river of stone—a long tongue of cold, hard lava—stretching +down to the shore of the island, and here +across the trees on the mountain-top could be seen, +even now, the smoke of her anger. Perhaps, after all, +Pélé was greater than Jehovah—she was certainly terrible—and +she was very near!</p> + +<p>"If you do not offer fire to her, as you used to do," +the priests went on, "she will pour down her fire into +the sea and kill all your fish. She will fill up your fishing +grounds with the pahoehoe<a name="FNanchor_27_27" id="FNanchor_27_27"></a><a href="#Footnote_27_27" class="fnanchor">[27]</a> (lava), and you will +starve. Great is Pélé and greatly to be feared."</p> + +<p>The priests were angry because the preaching of the +missionaries had led many away from the worship of +Pélé which, of course, meant fewer hogs for themselves; +and now the whole nation on Hawaii, that volcanic +island of the seas, seemed to be deserting her.</p> + +<p>The people began to waver under the threats, but a +brown-faced woman, with strong, fearless eyes that +looked out with scorn on Pélé priests, was not to be +terrified.</p> + +<p>"It is Kapiolani,<a name="FNanchor_28_28" id="FNanchor_28_28"></a><a href="#Footnote_28_28" class="fnanchor">[28]</a> the chieftainess," murmured the +people to one another. "She is Christian; will she +forsake Jehovah and return to Pélé?"</p> + +<p><a name="Page_88" id="Page_88"></a>Only four years before this, Kapiolani had—according +to the custom of the Hawaiian chieftainesses, +married many husbands, and she had given way to +drinking habits. Then she had become a Christian, +giving up her drinking and sending away all her husbands +save one. She had thrown away her idols and +now taught the people in their huts the story of +Christ.</p> + +<p>"Pélé is nought," she declared, "I will go to Kilawea,<a name="FNanchor_29_29" id="FNanchor_29_29"></a><a href="#Footnote_29_29" class="fnanchor">[29]</a> +the mountain of the fires where the smoke and +stones go up, and Pélé shall not touch me. My God, +Jehovah, made the mountain and the fires within it +too, as He made us all."</p> + +<p>So it was noised through the island that Kapiolani, +the queenly, would defy Pélé the goddess. The priests +threatened her with awful torments of fire from the +goddess; her people pleaded with her not to dare the +fires of Kilawea. But Kapiolani pressed on, and eighty +of her people made up their minds to go with her. +She climbed the mountain paths, through lovely valleys +hung with trees, up and up to where the hard rocky +lava-river cut the feet of those who walked upon it.</p> + +<p>Day by day they asked her to go back, and always +she answered, "If I am destroyed you may believe +in Pélé; if I live you must all believe in the true God, +Jehovah."</p> + +<p>As she drew nearer to the crater she saw the great +cloud of smoke that came up from the volcano and felt +the heat of its awful fires. But she did not draw back.</p> + +<p>As she climbed upward she saw by the side of the +path low bushes, and on them beautiful red and yel<a name="Page_89" id="Page_89"></a>low +berries, growing in clusters. The berries were like +large currants.</p> + +<p>"It is chelo,"<a name="FNanchor_30_30" id="FNanchor_30_30"></a><a href="#Footnote_30_30" class="fnanchor">[30]</a> said the priests, "it is Pélé's berry. +You must not touch them unless we ask her. She will +breathe fire on you."</p> + +<p>Kapiolani broke off a branch from one of the bushes +regardless of the horrified faces of the priests. And +she ate the berries, without stopping to ask the goddess +for her permission.</p> + +<p>She carried a branch of the berries in her hand. If +she had told them what she was going to do they would +have been frenzied with fear and horror.</p> + +<p>Up she climbed until the full terrors of the boiling +crater of Kilawea burst on her sight. Before her an +immense gulf yawned in the shape of the crescent +moon, eight miles in circumference and over a thousand +feet deep. Down in the smoking hollow, hundreds +of feet beneath her, a lake of fiery lava rolled in flaming +waves against precipices of rock. This ever-moving +lake of molten fire is called: "The House of Everlasting +Burning." This surging lake was dotted with tiny +mountain islets, and, from the tops of their little peaks, +pyramids of flame blazed and columns of grey smoke +went up. From some of these little islands streams of +blazing lava rolled down into the lake of fire. The air +was filled with the roar of the furnaces of flame.</p> + +<p>Even the fearless Kapiolani stood in awe as she +looked. But she did not flinch, though here and there, +as she walked, the crust of the lava cracked under her +feet and the ground was hot with hidden fire.</p> + +<p>She came to the very edge of the crater. To come so +<a name="Page_90" id="Page_90"></a>far without offering hogs and fish to the fiery goddess +was in itself enough to bring a fiery river of molten lava +upon her. Kapiolani offered nothing save defiance. +Audacity, they thought, could go no further.</p> + +<p>Here, a priestess of Pélé came, and raising her hands +in threat denounced death on the head of Kapiolani if +she came further. Kapiolani pulled from her robe a +book. In it—for it was her New Testament—she read +to the priestess of the one true, loving Father-God.</p> + +<p>Then Kapiolani did a thing at which the very limbs +of those who watched trembled and shivered. She went +to the edge of the crater and stepped over onto a jutting +rock and let herself down and down toward the +sulphurous burning lake. The ground cracked under +her feet and sulphurous steam hissed through crevices +in the rock, as though the demons of Pélé fumed in +their frenzy. Hundreds of staring, wondering eyes +followed her, fascinated and yet horrified.</p> + +<p>Then she stood on a ledge of rock, and, offering up +prayer and praise to the God of all, Who made the +volcano and Who made her, she cast the Pélé berries +into the lake, and sent stone after stone down into the +flaming lava. It was the most awful insult that could +be offered to Pélé! Now surely she would leap up in +fiery anger, and, with a hail of burning stones, consume +Kapiolani. But nothing happened; and Kapiolani, +turning, climbed the steep ascent of the crater +edge and at last stood again unharmed among her people. +She spoke to her people, telling them again that +Jehovah made the fires. She called on them all to sing +to His praise and, for the first time, there rang across +the crater of Kilawea the song of Christians. The +<a name="Page_91" id="Page_91"></a>power of the priests was gone, and from that hour the +people all over that island who had trembled and hesitated +between Pélé and Christ turned to the worship of +our Lord Jesus, the Son of God the Father Almighty.</p> + +<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3><p><a name="Page_92" id="Page_92"></a></p> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_24_24" id="Footnote_24_24"></a><a href="#FNanchor_24_24"><span class="label">[24]</span></a> Pay-lay.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_25_25" id="Footnote_25_25"></a><a href="#FNanchor_25_25"><span class="label">[25]</span></a> Hah-wye-ee.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_26_26" id="Footnote_26_26"></a><a href="#FNanchor_26_26"><span class="label">[26]</span></a> Discovered by Captain Cook in 1778. The first Christian missionaries +landed in 1819. Now the island is ruled by the United States of America.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_27_27" id="Footnote_27_27"></a><a href="#FNanchor_27_27"><span class="label">[27]</span></a> Pa-hō-è-hŏ-è.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_28_28" id="Footnote_28_28"></a><a href="#FNanchor_28_28"><span class="label">[28]</span></a> Kah-pèe-ō-lă-nèe. She was high female chief, in her own right, of a +large district.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_29_29" id="Footnote_29_29"></a><a href="#FNanchor_29_29"><span class="label">[29]</span></a> Kil-a-wee-ă. The greatest active volcano in the world.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_30_30" id="Footnote_30_30"></a><a href="#FNanchor_30_30"><span class="label">[30]</span></a> Chay-lo.</p></div> +</div> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h3><a name="CHAPTER_IX" id="CHAPTER_IX"></a>CHAPTER IX</h3> + +<h4>THE CANOE OF ADVENTURE</h4> + +<p class='center'><i>Elikana</i></p> + +<p class='center'>(Date of Incident, 1861)</p> + + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i1">"I know not where His islands lift<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Their fronded palms in air;<br /></span> +<span class="i1">I only know I cannot drift<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Beyond His love and care."<br /></span> +</div></div> + + +<h4>I</h4> + +<p>Manihiki Island looked like a tiny anchored canoe far +away across the Pacific, as Elikana glanced back from +his place at the tiller. He sang, meantime, quietly to +himself an air that still rang in his ears, the tune that +he and his brother islanders had sung in praise of the +Power and Providence of God at the services on Manihiki. +For the Christian people of the Penrhyn group +of South Sea Islands had come together in April, 1861, +for their yearly meeting, paddling from the different +quarters in their canoes through the white surge of the +breakers that thunder day and night round the island.</p> + +<p>Elikana looked ahead to where his own island of +Rakahanga grew clearer every moment on the sky-line +ahead of them, though each time his craft +dropped into the trough of the sea between the green +curves of the league-long ocean rollers the island was +lost from sight.</p> + +<p><a name="Page_93" id="Page_93"></a>He and his six companions were sailing back over +the thirty miles between Manihiki and Rakahanga, +two of the many little lonely ocean islands that stud +the Pacific like stars.</p> + +<p>They sailed a strange craft, for it cannot be called +raft or canoe or hut. It was all these and yet was +neither. Two canoes, forty-eight feet long, sailed side +by side. Between the canoes were spars, stretching +across from one to the other, lashed to each boat and +making a platform between them six feet wide. On +this was built a hut, roofed with the beautiful braided +leaves of the cocoa-nut palm.</p> + +<p>Overhead stretched the infinite sky. Underneath lay +thousands of fathoms of blue-green ocean, whose cold, +hidden deeps among the mountains and valleys of the +awful ocean under-world held strange goblin fish-shapes. +And on the surface this hut of leaves and bamboo +swung dizzily between sky and ocean on the frail +canoes. And in the canoes and the hut were six brown +Rakahangan men, two women, and a chubby, dark-eyed +child, who sat contented and tired, being lapped to +sleep by the swaying waters.</p> + +<p>Above them the great sail made of matting of fibre, +strained in the breeze that drove them nearer to the +haven where they would be. Already they could see +the gleam of the Rakahanga beach with the rim of silver +where the waves broke into foam. Then the breeze +dropped. The fibre-sail flapped uneasily against the +mast, while the two little canvas sails hung loosely, as +the wind, with little warning, swung round, and smiting +them in the face began to drive them back into the +ocean again.</p> + +<p><a name="Page_94" id="Page_94"></a>Elikana and his friends knew the sea almost like fish, +from the time they were babies. And they were little +troubled by the turn of the breeze, save that it would +delay their homecoming. They tried in vain to make +headway. Slowly, but surely they were driven back +from land, till they could see that there was no other +thing but just to turn about and let her run back to +Manihiki. In the canoes were enough cocoa-nuts to +feed them for days if need be, and two large calabashes +of water.</p> + +<p>The swift night fell, but the wind held strong, and +one man sat at the tiller while two others baled out the +water that leaked into the canoes. They kept a keen +watch, expecting to sight Manihiki; but when the dawn +flashed out of the sky in the East, where the island +should have been, there was neither Manihiki nor any +other land at all. They had no chart nor compass; +north and south and east and west stretched the wastes +of the Pacific for hundreds of leagues. Only here and +there in the ocean, and all unseen to them, like little +groups of mushrooms on a limitless prairie, lay groups +of islets.</p> + +<p>They might, indeed, sail for a year without ever +sighting any land; and one storm-driven wave of the +great ocean could smite their little egg-shell craft to +the bottom of the sea.</p> + +<p>They gathered together in the hut and with anxious +faces talked of what they might do. They knew that +far off to the southwest lay the islands of Samoa, and +Rarotonga. So they set the bows of their craft southward. +Morning grew to blazing noon and fell to evening +and night, and nothing did they see save the glit<a name="Page_95" id="Page_95"></a>tering +sparkling waters of the uncharted ocean, cut +here and there by the cruel fin of a waiting shark. It +was Saturday when they started; and night fell seven +times while their wonderful hut-boat crept southward +along the water, till the following Friday. Then the +wind changed, and, springing up from the south, drove +them wearily back once more in their tracks, and then +bore them eastward.</p> + +<p>For another week they drove before the breeze, feeding +on the cocoa-nuts. But the water in the calabashes +was gone. Then on the morning of the second Friday, +the fourteenth day of their sea-wanderings, just when +the sun in mid heaven was blazing its noon-heat upon +them and most of the little crew were lying under the +shade of the hut and the sail to doze away the hours +of tedious hunger, they heard the cry of "Land!" and +leaping to their feet gazed ahead at the welcome sight. +With sail and paddle they urged the craft on toward +the island.</p> + +<p>Then night fell, and with it squalls of wind and rain +came and buffeted them till they had to forsake the paddles +for the bailing-vessels to keep the boat afloat. +Taking down the sails they spread them flat to catch +the pouring rain, and then poured this precious fresh +water—true water of life to them—into their calabashes. +But when morning came no land could be +seen anywhere. It was as though the island had been +a land of enchantment and mirage, and now had faded +away. Yet hope sprang in them erect and glad next +day when land was sighted again; but the sea and the +wind, as though driven by the spirits of contrariness, +smote them back.</p> + +<p><a name="Page_96" id="Page_96"></a>For two more days they guided the canoe with the +tiller and tried to set her in one steady direction. Then, +tired and out of heart, after sixteen days of ceaseless +and useless effort, they gave it up and let her drift, for +the winds and currents to take her where they would.</p> + +<p>At night each man stood in his canoe almost starving +and parched with thirst, with aching back, stooping to +dip the water from the canoe and rising to pour it +over the side. For hour after hour, while the calm +moon slowly climbed the sky, each slaved at his dull +task. Lulled by the heave and fall of the long-backed +rollers as they slid under the keels of the canoes, the +men nearly dropped asleep where they stood. The quiet +waters crooned to them like a mother singing an old +lullaby—crooned and called, till a voice deep within +them said, "It is better to lie down and sleep and die +than to live and fight and starve."</p> + +<p>Then a moan from the sleeping child, or a sight of a +streaming ray of moonlight on the face of its mother +would send that nameless Voice shivering back to its +deep hiding-place—and the man would stoop and bail +again.</p> + +<p>Each evening as it fell saw their anxious eyes looking +west and north and south for land, and always there +was only the weary waste of waters. And as the sun +rose, they hardly dared open their eyes to the unbroken +rim of blue-grey that circled them like a steel prison. +They saw the thin edge of the moon grow to full blaze +and then fade to a corn sickle again as days and nights +grew to weeks and a whole month had passed.</p> + +<p>Every morning, as the pearl-grey sea turned to pink +and then to gleaming blue, they knelt on the raft be<a name="Page_97" id="Page_97"></a>tween +the canoes and turned their faces up to their +Father in prayer, and never did the sun sink behind +the rim of waters without the sound of their voices +rising into the limitless sky with thanks for safe-keeping.</p> + +<p>Slowly the pile of cocoa-nuts lessened. Each one of +them with its sweet milk and flesh was more precious to +them than a golden chalice set with rubies. The drops +of milk that dripped from them were more than ropes +of pearls.</p> + +<p>At last eight Sundays had followed one upon another; +and now at the end of the day there was only the +half of one cocoa-nut remaining. When that was gone—all +would be over. So they knelt down under the +cloudless sky on an evening calm and beautiful. They +were on that invisible line in the Great Pacific where +the day ends and begins. Those seven on the tiny craft +were, indeed, we cannot but believe, the last worshippers +in all the great world-house of God as Sunday +drew to its end just where they were. Was it to be +the last time that they would pray to God in this life?</p> + +<p>Prayer ended; night was falling. Elikana the leader, +who had kept their spirits from utterly failing, stood +up and gazed out with great anxious eyes before the +last light should fail.</p> + +<p>"Look, there upon the edge of the sea where the sun +sets. Is it—" He could hardly dare to believe that +it was not the mirage of his weary brain. But one and +another and then all peered out through the swiftly +waning light and saw that indeed it was land.</p> + +<p>Then a squall of wind sprang up, blowing them away +from the land. Was this last hope, by a fine ecstasy of +<a name="Page_98" id="Page_98"></a>torture, to be dangled before them and then snatched +away? But with the danger came the help; with the +wind came the rain; cool, sweet, refreshing, life-giving +water. Then the squall of wind dropped and changed. +They hoisted the one sail that had not blown to tatters, +and drove for land.</p> + +<p>Yet their most awful danger still lay before them. +The roar of the breakers on the cruel coral reef caught +their ears. But there was nothing for it but to risk the +peril. They were among the breakers which caught and +tossed them on like eggshells. The scourge of the surf +swept them; a woman, a man—even the child, were torn +from them and ground on the ghastly teeth of the coral. +Five were swept over with the craft into the still, blue +lagoon, and landing they fell prone upon the shore, just +breathing and no more, after the giant buffeting of +the thundering rollers, following the long, slow starvation +of their wonderful journey in the hut on the +canoes among "the waters of the wondrous isles."</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i1">"Wake: the silver dusk returning<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Up the beach of darkness brims,<br /></span> +<span class="i1">And the ship of sunrise burning<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Strands upon the eastern rims."<br /></span> +</div></div> + + +<h4>II</h4> + +<p>Thrown up by the ocean in the darkness like driftwood, +Elikana and his companions lay on the grey +shore. Against the dim light of the stars and beyond +the beach of darkness they could see the fronds of the +palms waving. The five survivors were starving, and +the green cocoa-nuts hung above them, filled with food +and drink. But their bodies, broken and tormented as +<a name="Page_99" id="Page_99"></a>they were by hunger and the battering breakers, refused +even to rise and climb for the food that meant +life. So they lay there, as though dead.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>Over the ridge of the beach came a man. His pale +copper skin shone in the fresh sunlight of the morning. +His quick black eyes were caught by the sight of +torn clothing hanging on a bush. Moving swiftly down +the beach of pounded coral, he saw a man lying with +arms thrown out, face downward. Turning the body +over Faivaatala<a name="FNanchor_31_31" id="FNanchor_31_31"></a><a href="#Footnote_31_31" class="fnanchor">[31]</a> found that the man was dead. Taking +the body in his arms he staggered with it up the +beach, and placed it under the shade of the trees. Returning +he found the living five. Their gaunt bodies +and the broken craft on the shore told him without +words the story of their long drifting over the wilderness +of the waters.</p> + +<p>Without stopping to waste words in empty sympathy +with starving men, Faivaatala ran to the nearest cocoa-nut +tree and, climbing it, threw down luscious nuts. +Those below quickly knocked off the tops, drank deep +draughts of the cool milk and then ate. Coming down +again, Faivaatala kindled a fire and soon had some +fish grilling for these strange wanderers thrown up on +the tiny islet.</p> + +<p>They had no time to thank him before he ran off +and swiftly paddled to Motutala, the island where he +lived, to tell the story of these strange castaways. He +came back with other helpers in canoes, and the five +getting aboard were swiftly paddled to Motutala.</p> + +<p>As the canoes skimmed over the surface of the great +<a name="Page_100" id="Page_100"></a>lagoon Elikana and his friends could see, spread out in +a great semi-circle that stretched to the horizon, the +long low coral islets crowned with palms which form +part of the Ellice Islands.</p> + +<p>The islanders, men, women, and children, ran down +the beach to see the newcomers and soon had set apart +huts for them and made them welcome. Elikana gathered +them round him, and began to tell them about the +love of Jesus and the protecting care of God the +Father. It all seemed strange to them, but quickly they +learned from him, and he began to teach them and their +children. This went on for four months, till one day +Elikana said: "I must go away and learn more so that +I can teach you more."</p> + +<p>But they had become so fond of Elikana that they +said: "No, you must not leave us," and it was only +when he promised to come back with another teacher to +help him, that they could bring themselves to part with +him. So when a ship came to the island to trade in +cocoa-nuts Elikana went aboard and sailed to Samoa +to the London Missionary Society's training college +there at Malua.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>"A ship! A ship!" The cry was taken up through +the island, and the people running down the beach saw +a large sailing vessel. Boats put down and sculls +flashed as sailors pulled swiftly to the shore.</p> + +<p>They landed and the people gathered round to see +and to hear what they would say.</p> + +<p>"Come onto our ship," said these men, who had +sailed there from Peru, "and we will show you how +you can be rich with many knives and much calico."</p> + +<p><a name="Page_101" id="Page_101"></a>But the islanders shook their heads and said they +would stay where they were. Then a wicked white man +named Tom Rose, who lived on the island and knew +how much the people were looking forward to the day +when Elikana would come back to teach them, went to +the traders and whispered what he knew to them.</p> + +<p>So the Peruvian traders, with craft shining in their +eyes, turned again to the islanders and said: "If you +will come with us, we will take you where you will be +taught all that men can know about God."</p> + +<p>At this the islanders broke out into glad cries and +speaking to one another said: "Let us go and learn +these things."</p> + +<p>The day came for sailing, and as the sun rose, hundreds +of brown feet were running to the beach, children +dancing with excitement, women saying "Goodbye" +to their husbands—men, who for the first time +in all their lives were to leave their tiny islet for the +wonderful world beyond the ocean.</p> + +<p>So two hundred of them went on board. The sails +were hoisted and they went away never to return; +sailed away not to learn of Jesus, but to the sting of +the lash and the shattering bullet, the bondage of the +plantations, and to death at the hands of those merciless +beasts of prey, the Peruvian slavers.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>Years passed and a little fifty-ton trading vessel came +to anchor outside the reef. One man and then another +and another got down into the little boat and pulled +for the shore. Elikana had returned. The women and +children ran down to meet him—but few men were +there, for nearly all had gone.</p> + +<p><a name="Page_102" id="Page_102"></a>"Where is this one? Where is the other?" cried +Elikana, with sad face as he looked around on them.</p> + +<p>"Gone, gone," came the answer; "carried away by +the man-stealing ships."</p> + +<p>Elikana turned to the white missionary who had +come with him, to ask what they could do.</p> + +<p>"We will leave Joane and his wife here," replied Mr. +Murray.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>So a teacher from Samoa stayed there and taught the +people, while Elikana went to begin work in an island +near by.</p> + +<p>To-day a white lady missionary has gone to live +in the Ellice Islands, and the people are Christians, and +no slave-trader can come to snatch them away.</p> + +<p>So there sailed over the waters of the wondrous isles +first the boat of sunrise and then the ship of darkness, +and last of all the ship of the Peace of God. The ship +of darkness had seemed for a time to conquer, but +her day is now over; and to-day on that beach, as the +sunlight brims over the edge of the sea, and a new +Lord's Day dawns, you may hear the islanders sing +their praise to the Light of the World, Who shines +upon them and keeps them safe.</p> + +<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3><p><a name="Page_103" id="Page_103"></a></p> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_31_31" id="Footnote_31_31"></a><a href="#FNanchor_31_31"><span class="label">[31]</span></a> Fă-ee-vă tă lā.</p></div> +</div> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h3><a name="CHAPTER_X" id="CHAPTER_X"></a>CHAPTER X</h3> + +<h4>THE ARROWS OF SANTA CRUZ</h4> + +<p class='center'><i>Bishop Patteson</i></p> + +<p class='center'>(Date of Incident—August 15th, 1864)</p> + + +<p>The brown crew of <i>The Southern Cross</i> breathed +freely again as the anchor swung into place and the +schooner began to nose her way out into the open +Pacific. They were hardened to dangers, but the Island +of Tawny Cannibals had strained their nerve, by +its hourly perils from club and flying arrow. The men +were glad to see their ship's bows plunge freely again +through the long-backed rollers.</p> + +<p>As they set her course to the Island of Santa Cruz +the crew talked together of the men of the island they +had left. In his cabin sat a great bronzed bearded man +writing a letter to his own people far away on the other +side of the world. Here are the very words that he +wrote as he told the story of one of the dangers through +which they had just passed on the island:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>"As I sat on the beach with a crowd about me, most +of them suddenly jumped up and ran off. Turning my +head I saw a man (from the boat they saw two) coming +to me with club uplifted. I remained sitting and +held out a few fish-hooks to him, but one or two men +<a name="Page_104" id="Page_104"></a>jumped up and, seizing him by the waist, forced him +off.</p> + +<p>"After a few minutes I went back to the boat. I +found out that a poor fellow called Moliteum was shot +dead two months ago by a white trader for stealing a +bit of calico. The wonder was, not that they wanted to +avenge the death of their kinsman, but that others +should have prevented it. How could they possibly +know that I was not one of the wicked set? Yet they +did.... The plan of going among the people unarmed +makes them regard me as a friend."</p></div> + +<p>Then he says of these men who had just tried to kill +him: "The people, though constantly fighting, and +cannibals and the rest of it, are to me very attractive."</p> + +<p>The ship sailed on till they heard ahead of them the +beating of the surf on the reef of Santa Cruz. Behind +the silver line of the breakers the waving fronds of her +palms came into sight. They put <i>The Southern Cross</i> +in, cast anchor, and let a boat down from her side. +Into the boat tumbled a British sailor named Pearce, a +young twenty-year-old Englishman named Atkin, and +three brown South-Sea Island boys from the missionary +training college for native teachers on Norfolk Island, +and their leader, Bishop Patteson, the white man +who, having faced the clubs of savages on a score of +islands, never flinched from walking into peril again +to lead them to know of "the best Man in the world, +Jesus Christ." These brown boys were young helpers +of Bishop Patteson. And one of them especially, +Fisher Young, would have died for his great white +leader gladly. They were like father and son.</p> + +<p><a name="Page_105" id="Page_105"></a>The reef, covered at mid-tide with curling waters +mottled with the foam of the broken waves, was alive +with men; while the beach beyond was black with +crowds of the wild islanders who had come down to see +the strange visitors from the ship. The four men +sculled the boat on to the edge of the reef and then +rested on their oars as Patteson swung himself over the +side into the cool water. He waded across the reef +between the hosts of savages, and in every hand was a +club or spear or a six-foot wooden bow with an arrow +ready to notch in its bamboo string.</p> + +<p>Patteson had come to make friends with them. So +he entered a dark wattled house and sat down to talk. +The doorway was filled with the faces of wondering +men. As he looked on them a strange gleam of longing +came into his eyes and a smile of great tenderness softened +the strength of his brown face—the longing and +the tenderness of a shepherd looking for wandering +sheep who are lost on the wild mountains of the world.</p> + +<p>Then he rose, left the house, and went back to the +boat. The water was now one seething cauldron of +men—walking, splashing, swimming. Some, as Patteson +climbed into his boat, caught hold of the gunwale +and could hardly be made to loosen their hold. The +four young fellows in the boat swung their oars and +got her under way, but they had made barely half a +dozen strokes when, without warning, an arrow +whizzed through the air into the boat. A cloud of arrows +followed.</p> + +<p>Six canoes were now filled with savage Santa Cruzans, +who surrounded the boat and joined in the shooting. +Patteson, who was in the stern between his boys +<a name="Page_106" id="Page_106"></a>and the bowmen, had not shipped the rudder, so he +held it up, as the boat shot ahead of the canoes, to +shield off arrows.</p> + +<p>Turning round to see whither his now rudderless +boat was being pulled, he saw that they were heading +for a little bay in the reef, which would have wrecked +their hopes of safety.</p> + +<p>"Pull, port oars, pull on steadily," shouted Patteson; +and they made for <i>The Southern Cross</i>.</p> + +<p>As he called to them he saw Pearce, the young British +sailor, lying between the thwarts with the long shaft +of an arrow in his chest, and a young Norfolk Islander +with an arrow under his left eye. The arrows flew +around them in clouds, and suddenly Fisher Young—the +nineteen-year-old Polynesian whom he loved as a +son—who was pulling stroke, gave a faint scream. He +was shot through the left wrist.</p> + +<p>"Look out, sir! close to you," cried one of his crew. +But the arrows were all around him. All the way to +the schooner the canoes skimmed over the water chasing +the boat. The four youths, including the wounded, +pulled on bravely and steadily. At last they reached +the ship and climbed on board, while the canoes—fearing +vengeance from the men on the schooner—turned +and fled.</p> + +<p>Once aboard, Bishop Patteson knelt by the side of +Pearce, drew out the arrow which had run more than +five inches deep into his chest, and bound up his +wound. Turning to Fisher, he found that the arrow +had gone through the wrist and had broken off in the +wound. Taking hold of the point of the arrow where +it stood out on the lower side of the wrist, Patteson +<a name="Page_107" id="Page_107"></a>pulled it through, though the agony of the boy was +very great.</p> + +<p>The arrows were wooden-headed and not poisoned. +The wounds seemed to be healing, but a few days later +Fisher said, "I can't make out what makes my jaws +feel so stiff."</p> + +<p>Fisher Young was the grandson of fierce, foul Pitcairn +Island cannibals, and was himself a brave and +pure Christian lad. He had faced death with his master +many times on coral reefs, in savage villages, on +wild seas and under the clubs of Pacific islanders. Now +he was face to face with something more difficult than +a swift and dangerous adventure—the slow, dying +agony of lockjaw. He grew steadily worse in spite of +everything that Patteson could do.</p> + +<p>Near to the end he said faintly, "Kiss me; I am very +glad I was doing my duty. Tell my father that I was +in the path of duty, and he will be so glad. Poor +Santa Cruz people!"</p> + +<p>He spoke in that way of the people who had killed +him. The young brown hero lies to-day, as he would +have wished, in the port that was named after the +Bishop whom he loved, and who was his hero, Port +Patteson.</p> + +<p>"I loved him," said Patteson, "as I think I never +loved anyone else." Fisher's love to his Bishop had +been that of a youth to the hero whom he worships, +but Patteson had led that brown islander still further, +for he had taught the boy to love the Hero of all heroes, +Jesus Christ.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><a name="Page_108" id="Page_108"></a></p> +<h3><a name="CHAPTER_XI" id="CHAPTER_XI"></a>CHAPTER XI</h3> + +<h4>FIVE KNOTS IN A PALM LEAF</h4> + +<p class='center'><i>The Death of Patteson</i></p> + +<p class='center'>(Date of Incident, September 20th, 1871)</p> + + +<p>The masts of the schooner <i>The Southern Cross</i> +swung gently to and fro across the darkening sky as +the long, calm rollers of the Pacific slipped past her +hull. Her bows spread only a ripple of water as the +slight breeze bore her slowly towards the island of +Nukapu.<a name="FNanchor_32_32" id="FNanchor_32_32"></a><a href="#Footnote_32_32" class="fnanchor">[32]</a></p> + +<p>On deck stood a group of men, their brown faces +turned to a tall, bearded man. As the light of the setting +sun gleamed on his bronze face, it kindled his +brave eyes and showed the grave smile that played +about the corners of his mouth. They all looked on +him with that worship which strong men give to a +hero, who can be both brave and kindly. But "he wist +not that his face shone" for them.</p> + +<p>Patteson read to these young men from a Book; and +the words that he read were these: "And they stoned +Stephen, calling upon God and saying, 'Lord Jesus, +receive my spirit.' And he knelt down and cried, with +a loud voice, 'Lord, lay not this sin to their charge'; +and when he had said this, he fell asleep."</p> + +<p>When he had spoken to them strongly on these +<a name="Page_109" id="Page_109"></a>words and said how it may come to any man who worships +Jesus to suffer so, Bishop Patteson and all except +the man on watch went to their sleep. The South +Sea Island men and the young Englishman who were +there remembered all their lives what Patteson had +said that evening; partly because these men themselves +had seen him brave such a death as Stephen's again +and again, and, indeed, they had themselves stood in +peril by his side face to face with threatening savages, +but even more because of the adventure that came to +them on the next day.</p> + +<p>At dawn they sighted land, and by eleven o'clock +they were so near that they could see, shimmering in +the heat of the midsummer sun, the white beach of +coral sand and the drooping palms that make all the +island of Nukapu green.<a name="FNanchor_33_33" id="FNanchor_33_33"></a><a href="#Footnote_33_33" class="fnanchor">[33]</a> Looking out under their +hands to the island, the men aboard <i>The Southern Cross</i> +could see four great canoes, with their sails set, hovering +like hawks about the circling reef which lay between +them and the island. On the reef the blue waves +beat and broke into a gleaming line of cool white foam.</p> + +<p>The slight breeze was hardly strong enough to help +the ship to make the island. It was as though she +knew the danger of that day and would not carry Patteson +and his men into the perils that lay hidden behind +the beauty of that island of Nukapu.</p> + +<p>Patteson knew the danger. He knew that, but a +little time before their visit, white men had come in a +ship, had let down their boats and rowed to the men of +the island, had pretended to make friends, and then, +shooting some and capturing others, had sped back to +<a name="Page_110" id="Page_110"></a>the ship, carrying off the captives to work for them on +the island of Fiji. The law of the savages of the +islands was "Blood for blood." And to them all white +men belonged to one tribe. The peril that lay before +Patteson was that they might attack him in revenge for +the foul crime of those white traders.</p> + +<p>Just before noon the order was given to lower a boat +from <i>The Southern Cross</i>. Patteson went down into +it, and sat in the stern, while Mr. Atkin (his English +helper), Stephen Taroniara, James Minipa, and John +Nonono came with him to row. The boat swung +toward the reef. Between the reef and the island lay +two miles of the blue and glittering lagoon.</p> + +<p>By the time the boat reached the reef six canoes full +of warriors had come together there. The tide was not +high enough to float the boat across the reef. The +Nukapuan natives said they would haul the boat up +on to the reef, but the Bishop did not think it wise to +consent. Then two of the savages said to "Bisipi," as +they called the Bishop:</p> + +<p>"Will you come into our canoe?"</p> + +<p>Without a moment's hesitation, knowing that confidence +was the best way to win them, he stepped into +the canoe. As he entered they gave him a basket with +yams and other fruit in it.</p> + +<p>As the tide was low, the Bishop and the savages were +obliged to wade over the reef, dragging the canoe +across to the deeper lagoon within. The boat's crew of +<i>The Southern Cross</i> stopped in the outer sea, drifting +on the tide with the other four Nukapu canoes. They +watched the Bishop cross the lagoon in the canoe and +<a name="Page_111" id="Page_111"></a>land far off upon the beach. Then he went from their +sight.</p> + +<p>The brown men and the white man in the boat were +trying to talk to the islanders in the remaining canoes +outside the reef, when suddenly a savage jumped up in +the nearest canoe, not ten yards from them, and called +out in his native language:</p> + +<p>"Have you anything like this?"</p> + +<p>He drew his bow to his ear and shot a yard arrow. +His companions in the other canoes leapt to their feet +and sent showers of arrows whizzing at the men in +the boat, shouting as they aimed:</p> + +<p>"This for New Zealand man, this for Bernu man, +this for Motu man."</p> + +<p>Pulling away with all their speed, Patteson's men +were soon out of range, but an arrow had nailed John +Nonono's cap to his head. Stephen lay in the bottom +of the boat with six arrows in his chest and shoulders. +Mr. Atkin, the white man, had one in his left shoulder.</p> + +<p>They reached the ship and were helped on board. +The arrow head was drawn out from Mr. Atkin's +shoulder, and was found to be made of a sharpened +human bone. No sooner was the arrow head out than +Mr. Atkin leapt back into the boat, insisting on going +back to find Patteson. He alone knew how and where +the reef could be crossed on the tide that was now +rising.</p> + +<p>So they got a boat's crew from the ship, put a beaker +full of water and some food in the boat, and pulled +toward the reef.</p> + +<p>At half-past four the tide was high enough to carry +them across, and they rowed over, looking through their +<a name="Page_112" id="Page_112"></a>glasses anxiously at the white shore which was lined +with brown figures. A canoe rowed out towards them +bringing another canoe in tow. As the boat went +towards the island, one canoe cast off the other, and +went back; the second canoe drifted towards them +slowly on the still waters of the blue lagoon.</p> + +<p>As it came nearer they saw that in the middle of it +lay Something motionless, covered with matting. They +pulled alongside, leaned over the canoe, and lifted into +their boat—the body of Patteson. The empty canoe +now drifted away.</p> + +<p>A yell went up from the savages on the shore. The +boat was pulled towards the ship and then the body +lifted up and laid on the deck. It had been rolled in the +native matting as a shroud, tied at the head and feet. +They unrolled the mat, and there on the face of the +dead Bishop was still that wonderful, patient and winning +smile, as of one who at the moment when his head +was beneath the uplifted club said, "Lord, lay not this +sin to their charge," and had then fallen asleep.</p> + +<p>There was a palm leaf fastened over his breast. In +its long leaflets five knots were made. On the body, in +the head, the side, and the legs were five wounds. And +five men in Fiji were at work in the plantations—men +captured from Nukapu by brutal white traders.</p> + +<p>It was the vengeance of the savage—the call of +"blood for blood"; and the death of Patteson lies surely +upon the head of those white traders who carried death +and captivity to the white coral shore of Nukapu.</p> + +<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3><p><a name="Page_113" id="Page_113"></a></p> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_32_32" id="Footnote_32_32"></a><a href="#FNanchor_32_32"><span class="label">[32]</span></a> Noo-kă-poo.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_33_33" id="Footnote_33_33"></a><a href="#FNanchor_33_33"><span class="label">[33]</span></a> Midsummer day on the Equator, September 21.</p></div> +</div> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h3><a name="CHAPTER_XII" id="CHAPTER_XII"></a>CHAPTER XII</h3> + +<h4>THE BOY OF THE ADVENTUROUS HEART</h4> + +<p class='center'><i>Chalmers, the Boy</i></p> + +<p class='center'>(Born 1841, martyred 1901)</p> + + +<p>The rain had poured down in such torrents that even +the hardy boys of Inverary in Scotland had been driven +indoors. Now the sky had cleared, and the sun was +shining again after the great storm. The boys were +out again, and a group of them were walking toward +the little stream of Aray which tumbled through the +glen down to Loch Fyne. But the stream was "little" +no longer.</p> + +<p>As the boys came near to the place called "The Three +Bridges," where a rough wooden bridge crossed the +torrent, they walked faster towards the stream, for +they could hear it roaring in a perfect flood which shook +the timbers of the bridge. The great rainfall was running +from the hills through a thousand streamlets into +the main torrent.</p> + +<p>Suddenly there came a shout and a scream. A boy +dashed toward them saying that one of his schoolmates +had fallen into the rushing water, and that the +full spate of the Aray was carrying him away down to +the sea. The boys stood horrified—all except one, who +rushed forward, pulling off his jacket as he ran, leapt +down the bank to the lower side of the bridge, and, +<a name="Page_114" id="Page_114"></a>clinging to the timber, held to it with one arm while he +stretched out the other as the drowning boy was being +carried under the bridge, seized him, and held him +tightly with his left hand.</p> + +<p>James Chalmers—the boy who had gone to the +rescue—though only ten years old, could swim. Letting +go of the bridge, while still holding the other boy +with one arm, he allowed the current to carry them +both down to where the branches hung over the bank to +the water's surface. Seizing one of these, he dragged +himself and the boy toward the bank, whence he was +helped to dry land by his friends.</p> + +<p>The boy whom young James Chalmers had saved +belonged to a rival school. Often the wild-blooded +boys (like their fierce Highland ancestors who fought +clan against clan) had attacked the boys of this school +and had fought them. James, whose father was a stonemason +and whose mother was a Highland lassie born +near Loch Lomond, was the leader in these battles, but +all the fighting was forgotten when he heard that a boy +was in danger of his life, and so he had plunged in as +swiftly to save him as he would have done for any boy +from his own school.</p> + +<p>We do not hear that James was clever at lessons in +his school, but when there was anything to be done, he +had the quickest hand, the keenest eye, the swiftest +mind, and the most daring heart in all the village.</p> + +<p>Though he loved the hills and glens and the mountain +torrent, James, above everything else, revelled in +the sea. One day a little later on, after the rescue of +his friend from drowning, James stood on the quay +at Inverary gazing across the loch and watching the +<a name="Page_115" id="Page_115"></a>sails of the fishing boats, when he heard a loud cry.</p> + +<p>He looked round. There, on the edge of the quay, +stood a mother wringing her hands and calling out +that her child had fallen into the water and was drowning. +James ran along the quay, and taking off his coat +as he dashed to the spot, he dived into the water and, +seizing the little child by the dress, drew him ashore. +The child seemed dead, but when they laid him on the +quayside, and moved his arms, his breath began to +come and go again and the colour returned to his +cheeks.</p> + +<p>Twice Chalmers had saved others from drowning. +Three times he himself, as the result of his daring adventures +in the sea, was carried home, supposed to be +dead by drowning.</p> + +<p>At another time he, with two other boys, thrust a +tarred herring-box into the sea from the sandy shore +between the two rocky points where the western sea +came up the narrow Loch Fyne.</p> + +<p>"Look at James!" shouted one of the boys to his +companions as Chalmers leapt into the box.</p> + +<p>It almost turned over, and he swayed and rolled and +then steadied as the box swung out from the shore.</p> + +<p>The other boys, laughing and shouting, towed him +and his boat through the sea as they walked along the +shore. Suddenly, as they talked, they staggered forward. +The cord had snapped and they fell on the sand, +still laughing, but when they stood up again the laughter +died on their lips. James was being swiftly carried out +by the current to sea—and in a tarred herring-box! He +had no paddle, and his hands were of no effect in trying +to move the boat toward the shore.</p> + +<p><a name="Page_116" id="Page_116"></a>The boys shouted. There came an answering cry +from the door of a cottage in the village. A fisherman +came swinging down the beach, strode to his boat, took +the two boys into it, and taking an oar himself and +giving the other to the two boys, they pulled out with +the tide. They reached James and rescued him just as +the herring-box was sinking. He went home to the +little cottage where he lived, and his mother gave him +a proper thrashing.</p> + +<p>Some of James' schoolfellows used to go on Sundays +to a school in Inverary. He made up his mind to join +them. The class met in the vestry of the United Presbyterian +Church there. After their lesson they went +together into the church to hear a closing address. Mr. +Meikle, the minister, who was also superintendent of +the school, one afternoon took from his pocket a magazine +(a copy of the "Presbyterian Record"). From +this magazine he read a letter from a brave missionary +in the far-off cannibal islands of Fiji. The letter told +of the savage life there and of how, already, the story +of Jesus was leading the men no longer to drag their +victims to the cannibal ovens, nor to pile up the skulls +of their enemies so as to show their own bravery. The +writer said they were beginning happier lives in which +the awful terror of the javelin and the club, and the +horror of demons and witches was gone.</p> + +<p>When Mr. Meikle had finished reading the magazine +he folded it up again and then looked round on all the +boys in the school, saying:</p> + +<p>"I wonder if there is a boy here this afternoon who +will become a missionary, and by and by bring the +Gospel to other such cannibals as those?"</p> + +<p><a name="Page_117" id="Page_117"></a>Even as the minister said those words, the adventurous +heart of young Chalmers leapt in reply as he +said to himself, "Yes, God helping me, I will."</p> + +<p>He was just a freckled, dark-haired boy with hazel +eyes, a boy tingling with the joy of the open air and +with the love of the heave and flow of the sea. But +when he made up his mind to do a thing, however great +the difficulties or dangers, James usually carried it +through.</p> + +<p>So it came about that some years later in 1866, having +been trained and accepted by the London Missionary +Society, Chalmers, as a young man, walked across +the gangway to a fine new British-built clipper ship. +It had been christened <i>John Williams</i> after the great +hero missionary<a name="FNanchor_34_34" id="FNanchor_34_34"></a><a href="#Footnote_34_34" class="fnanchor">[34]</a> who gave up his life on the beach of +Erromanga.</p> + +<p>This boy, who loved the sea and breathed deep with +joy in the face of adventure and peril, had set his face +towards the deep, long breakers of the far-off Pacific. +He was going to carry to the South Seas the story of +the Hero and Saviour Whom he had learnt to love +within the sound of the Atlantic breakers that dashed +and fretted against the rocks of Western Scotland.</p> + +<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3><p><a name="Page_118" id="Page_118"></a></p> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_34_34" id="Footnote_34_34"></a><a href="#FNanchor_34_34"><span class="label">[34]</span></a> See <a href="#CHAPTER_VII">Chapter VII</a>.</p></div> +</div> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h3><a name="CHAPTER_XIII" id="CHAPTER_XIII"></a>CHAPTER XIII</h3> + +<p class='center'><b>THE SCOUT OF PAPUA</b><a name="FNanchor_35_35" id="FNanchor_35_35"></a><a href="#Footnote_35_35" class="fnanchor">[35]</a></p> + + +<p class='center'><i>Chalmers, the Friend</i></p> + +<p class='center'>(Date of Incident, about 1893)</p> + + +<p>The quick puffing of the steam launch <i>Miro</i> was the +only sound to break the stillness of the mysterious +Aivai<a name="FNanchor_36_36" id="FNanchor_36_36"></a><a href="#Footnote_36_36" class="fnanchor">[36]</a> River. On the launch were three white people—two +men and a woman. They were the first who had +ever broken the silence of that stream.</p> + +<p>They gazed out under the morning sun along the +dead level of the Purari<a name="FNanchor_37_37" id="FNanchor_37_37"></a><a href="#Footnote_37_37" class="fnanchor">[37]</a> delta, for they had left behind +them the rolling breakers of the Gulf of Papua in +order to explore this dark river. Away to the south +rolled the blue waters between this vast island of New +Guinea and Northern Australia.</p> + +<p>They saw on either bank the wild tangle of twisted +mangroves with their roots higher than a man, twined +together like writhing serpents. They peered through +the thick bush with its green leaves drooping down to +the very water's edge. But mostly they looked ahead +over the bow of the boat along the green-brown water +that lay ahead of them, dappled with sunlight under the +trees. For they were facing an unknown district where +savage Papuans lived—as wild as hawks. They did +<a name="Page_119" id="Page_119"></a>not know what adventure might meet them at the next +bend of the river.</p> + +<p>"Splendid! Splendid!" cried one of the white men, +a bearded giant whose flashing eyes and mass of +brown hair gave him the look of a lion. "We will +make it the white woman's peace. Bravo!" And he +turned to Mrs. Abel, whose face lit up with pleasure +at his happy excitement.</p> + +<p>"No white man has even seen the people of Iala,"<a name="FNanchor_38_38" id="FNanchor_38_38"></a><a href="#Footnote_38_38" class="fnanchor">[38]</a> +said Tamate—for that was the native name given to +James Chalmers, the Scottish boy who had now gone +out to far-off Papua as a missionary.<a name="FNanchor_39_39" id="FNanchor_39_39"></a><a href="#Footnote_39_39" class="fnanchor">[39]</a> "Iko there"—and +he pointed to a stalwart Papuan who stood by the +funnel—"is the only one of us who has seen them and +can speak their tongue.</p> + +<p>"It is dangerous for your wife to go among these +people," he went on, turning to Mr. Abel, "but she will +help us more than anything else possibly can to make +friends." And Mr. Abel nodded, for he knew that +when the Papuans mean to fight they send their women +and children away; and that when they saw Mrs. Abel +they would believe that the white people came as friends +and not enemies.</p> + +<p>As the steamer carried this scouting party against the +swift current up the river toward Iala, Tamate wanted +to find how far up the river the village lay. So he +beckoned Iko to him. Tamate did not know a word of +the dialect which Iko spoke, but he had with him +an old wrinkled Papuan, who knew Iko's language, and +who looked out with worshipping eyes at the great +<a name="Page_120" id="Page_120"></a>white man who was his friend. So Tamate, wishing to +ask Iko how far away the village of Iala was, spoke +first to old Vaaburi,<a name="FNanchor_40_40" id="FNanchor_40_40"></a><a href="#Footnote_40_40" class="fnanchor">[40]</a> and then Vaaburi asked Iko.</p> + +<p>Iko stretched out his dark forefinger, and made them +understand that that finger meant the length of their +journey to Iala. Then with his other hand he touched +his forefinger under the second joint to show how far +they had travelled on their journey—not a third of the +distance.</p> + +<p>Hour after hour went by, as the steamer drove her +way through the swiftly running waters of Aivai. And +ever Iko pointed further and further up his finger until +at last they had reached his claw-like nail. By three +o'clock the middle of the nail was reached. The eyes of +all looked anxiously ahead. At every curve of the river +they strained their sight to see if Iala were in view. +How would these savage people welcome the white men +and woman in their snorting great canoe that had no +paddles, nor oars? There came a sharp bend in the +river, and then a long straight reach of water lying +between the forest-covered banks. Suddenly Iko called +out, and Tamate and Mr. and Mrs. Abel peered ahead.</p> + +<p>The great trees of the river nearly met above their +heads, and only a narrow strip of sky could be seen.</p> + +<p>There in the distance were the houses of Iala, close +clustered on both banks of the steaming river. They +stood on piles of wood driven into the mud, like houses +on stilts, and their high-pointed bamboo roofs stood out +over the river like gigantic poke-bonnets.</p> + +<p>"Slow," shouted Tamate to the engineer. The <i>Miro</i><a name="Page_121" id="Page_121"></a> +slackened speed till she just stemmed the running current +and no more.</p> + +<p>"It will be a bit of a shock to them," said Tamate to +his friends, "to see this launch. We will give them time +to get their wits together again."</p> + +<p>Looking ahead through their glasses, the white men +and Mrs. Abel could see canoes swiftly crossing and re-crossing +the river and men rushing about.</p> + +<p>"Full speed ahead," cried Tamate again, and then +after a few revolutions of the engine, "Go slow. It +will never do," he said, "to drop amongst them while +they are in that state. They will settle down presently." +And then, as he looked up at the sky between the waving +branches of the giant trees, "we have got a good two +hours' daylight yet," he said.</p> + +<p>Life and death to Tamate and his friends hung in the +balance, for they were three people unarmed, and here +were dark savage warriors in hundreds. Everything +depended on his choosing just the right moment for +going into the midst of these people. So he watched +them closely, knitting his shaggy eyebrows together as +he measured their state of mind by their actions. He +was the Scout of Christ in Papua, and he must be +watchful and note all those things that escape most men +but mean so much to trained eyes. Tamate seemed to +have a strange gift that made him able, even where +other men could tell nothing, to say exactly when it +was, and when it was not, possible to go among a wild, +untouched tribe.</p> + +<p>Now the bewildered Ialan savages had grown +quieter. Tamate called to the engineer to drive ahead +once more. Slowly the launch forged her way through +<a name="Page_122" id="Page_122"></a>the running waters and drew nearer and nearer to the +centre of Iala.</p> + +<p>There on either side stood the houses in long rows +stretching up the river, and on the banks hundreds of +men stood silent and as still as trees. Their canoes lay +half in and half out of the water ready for instant +launching. In each canoe stood its crew erect and +waiting. All the women and children had been sent +away, for these men were out to fight. They did not +know whether this strange house upon the water with +the smoke coming from its chimney was the work of +gods or devils. Still they stood there to face the +strange thing and, if need be, to fight.</p> + +<p>Brown Iko stood in the bows of the <i>Miro</i>; near him +stood Tamate. Then the engine stopped and the anchor +was dropped overboard. The savages stood +motionless. Not a weapon could be seen. The engineer, +hearing the anchor-chain rattle through the hole, +blew the steam-whistle in simple high spirits. As the +shriek of the whistle echoed under the arches of the +trees, with the swiftness of lightning the Ialan warriors +swung their long bows from behind their bodies. +Without stooping each caught up an arrow that stood +between his toes and with one movement fixed it and +pulled the bamboo strings of their black bows till the +notch of the arrows touched their ears. A hundred arrows +were aimed at the hearts of Tamate and Mr. and +Mrs. Abel.</p> + +<p>Swiftly Iko stood upon the bulwark of the <i>Miro</i>, and +shouted just one word at the top of his voice. It was +the Ialan word for "Peace." And again he shouted it, +and yet again "Peace, Peace!"</p> + +<p><a name="Page_123" id="Page_123"></a>Then he cried out "Pouta!"<a name="FNanchor_41_41" id="FNanchor_41_41"></a><a href="#Footnote_41_41" class="fnanchor">[41]</a> It was the name of +the chief of these savages. They had but to let the +arrows from their bows and all would have been over. +There was silence. What order would Pouta give?</p> + +<p>Then from the bank on their right came the sound +of an answering voice. In a flash every arrow was +taken from its bow, and again not a weapon was to +be seen.</p> + +<p>Iko then called out again to Pouta, and Tamate told +Iko what he was to say to his friend, the savage chief. +For some minutes the conversation went on. At last +Iko came to the point of asking for a canoe to take them +ashore.</p> + +<p>Chief Pouta hesitated. Then he gave his command, +and a large canoe was launched from the bank into the +river and slowly paddled towards the <i>Miro</i>.</p> + +<p>As the canoe came towards them, Tamate turned to +Mrs. Abel, who had stood there without flinching with +all the arrows pointed toward the boat; and he spoke +words like these: "Your bravery is our strength. +Seeing you makes them believe that we come for peace. +You give them greater confidence in us than all our +words."</p> + +<p>By this time the canoe had paddled alongside the +launch. Tamate went over the side first into the canoe, +then Mrs. Abel, then Mr. Abel, Iko, and Vaaburi. The +canoe pushed off again and paddled toward the landing +place, where a crowd of Ialan savages filled every inch +of space.</p> + +<p>As soon as the bow of the canoe touched the bank, +Tamate, without hesitating a second, stepped out with<a name="Page_124" id="Page_124"></a> +Iko. Together they walked up to the chief Pouta, and +Tamate put his arms around him in an embrace of +peace.</p> + +<p>Pouta, standing on a high place, shouted to all his +warriors. But none of the white people knew a word of +his meaning.</p> + +<p>Look where they would, in every direction, this white +woman and the two men were completely surrounded +by an unbroken mass of wild and armed savages, who +stood gazing upon the strange apparitions in their +midst.</p> + +<p>Tamate, without a pause, perfectly calm, and showing +no signs of fear, spoke to Pouta and his men +through old Vaaburi and Iko.</p> + +<p>"We have come," he said, "so that we may be +friends. We have come without weapons. We have +brought with us a woman of our tribe, for we come +in peace. We are strangers. But we come with great +things to tell. Some day we will come again and will +stay with you and will tell you all our message. To-day +we come only to make friends."</p> + +<p>Then Iko closed his eyes and prayed in the language +of the people of Iala.</p> + +<p>Turning to his friends when the prayer was over, +Tamate said quietly: "Now, we must get aboard as +quickly as we possibly can. My plan for a first visit is +to come, make friends and get away again swiftly. +When we are gone they will talk to one another about +us. Next time we come we shall meet friends."</p> + +<p>So they walked down through an avenue of armed +Papuans to the bank, and got into the canoe again: the +paddles flashed as she drove swiftly through the water +<a name="Page_125" id="Page_125"></a>toward the launch. As they climbed her side, the anchor +was weighed, the <i>Miro</i> swung round, her engines +started, and, carried down by the swift stream, she +slipped past the packed masses of silent men who lined +the banks.</p> + +<p>It is a great thing to be a pathfinder through a country +which no man has penetrated before. But it is a +greater thing to do as these missionary-scouts did on +their journey up the Aivai and find a path of friendship +into savage lives. To do that was the greatest joy in +Tamate's life. For he said, when he had spent many +years in this work:</p> + +<p>"Recall the twenty-one years, give me back all its +experiences, give me its shipwrecks, give me its standings +in the face of death, give it me surrounded with +savages with spears and clubs, give it me back again +with spears flying about me, with the club knocking me +to the ground, give it me back, and I will still be your +missionary."</p> + +<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3><p><a name="Page_126" id="Page_126"></a></p> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_35_35" id="Footnote_35_35"></a><a href="#FNanchor_35_35"><span class="label">[35]</span></a> Pa-poo-ă.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_36_36" id="Footnote_36_36"></a><a href="#FNanchor_36_36"><span class="label">[36]</span></a> A-ee-vă-ee.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_37_37" id="Footnote_37_37"></a><a href="#FNanchor_37_37"><span class="label">[37]</span></a> Poo-ră-ree.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_38_38" id="Footnote_38_38"></a><a href="#FNanchor_38_38"><span class="label">[38]</span></a> Ee-ă-lă.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_39_39" id="Footnote_39_39"></a><a href="#FNanchor_39_39"><span class="label">[39]</span></a> He had spent some sixteen years in the South Sea Island of Rarotonga +and had in 1877 become a pioneer among the cannibals of Papua (New +Guinea).</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_40_40" id="Footnote_40_40"></a><a href="#FNanchor_40_40"><span class="label">[40]</span></a> Vāā-boo-ree.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_41_41" id="Footnote_41_41"></a><a href="#FNanchor_41_41"><span class="label">[41]</span></a> Poo-o-tă.</p></div> +</div> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h3><a name="CHAPTER_XIV" id="CHAPTER_XIV"></a>CHAPTER XIV</h3> + +<h4>A SOUTH SEA SAMARITAN</h4> + +<p class='center'><i>Ruatoka</i><br /> +(Date of Incident, about 1878)</p> + + +<p>It was a dark night and silent. The swish and lapping +of the waters on the Port Moresby beach on the +southern shore of the immense island of New Guinea, +filled the air with a quiet hush of expectation.</p> + +<p>In a little white house sat a tall, dark man with his +wife. The man was Ruatoka. If you had asked "Who +is Ruatoka?" of all the Papuans for miles around Port +Moresby, they would have wondered at your ignorance. +"Ruatoka," they would have told you, was a +"Jesus man." He walked among their villages, and +did not fear them when they threatened him with spears +and clubs. He gave them medicines when they were +ill, and nursed them. He spoke strong words to them +which made their hearts turn to water within them +when he showed that they did wrong. He often stopped +them from fighting.</p> + +<p>Ruatoka, with his wife, had sailed from the South +Sea Islands with Tamate,<a name="FNanchor_42_42" id="FNanchor_42_42"></a><a href="#Footnote_42_42" class="fnanchor">[42]</a> who was to them their +great hero.</p> + +<p>"My fathers of old were heathen, savage men on the +island of Mangaia," he would say. "The white men +<a name="Page_127" id="Page_127"></a>came to them and brought the story of Jesus. Now +we are happy. But we, too, must go to the men of +New Guinea, just as the white men came to us. To-day +the New Guinea Papuans are savage cannibals +and heathen. To-morrow they will know Jesus and be +as happy as we are."</p> + +<p>So Ruatoka had been trained as a teacher and +preacher as well as a house-builder and carpenter; and +his wife was taught how to teach children as well as +good housekeeping.</p> + +<p>This was the brown man, Ruatoka, who sat that night +in his little house at Port Moresby on the shore behind +the great reef of Papua. Suddenly there came a knock +at his door. The door opened, and the black, frightened +faces of Papuans, with staring eyes, looked at +him.</p> + +<p>"What is the matter?" he asked.</p> + +<p>And they told him that, as they came at sunset along +the path from the people of Larogi to Port Moresby, +they found by the side of the path a white man. "He +was dying," they said. "We were afraid to touch him. +If we touched him and he died, his ghost would haunt +us for evermore."</p> + +<p>Ruatoka stood up at once and reached for his lantern, +and turning to the men said:</p> + +<p>"Come and guide me to the place."</p> + +<p>They said, "No, we are afraid of the demon spirit. +It is night. The man will die. We are afraid of the +spirits. We will not go."</p> + +<p>Ruatoka's father had told him when he was a boy +how his own people in the years before had dreaded the +spirit-demons of Mangaia, but that he must learn that +<a name="Page_128" id="Page_128"></a>there were no spirits to be dreaded; that one great +Father-Spirit ruled above all, and would take care of +His children, and that all those children must love one +another.</p> + +<p>So Rua, as they called him, knowing that the white +man who lay sick by the roadside in the night, though +of another colour, was yet a brother, and knowing that +no demon spirit could harm him in the dark, lighted +his lantern, poured water into a bottle, took a long +piece of cloth, folded it up, and started out under the +stars.</p> + +<p>He walked for mile after mile up steep hills and +down into valleys along the path; but nothing did he +hear save the cry of a night bird. At last he had gone +five miles, and was wondering whether he could ever +find the sick man (for the long grass towered up on +either side and all was still), when he heard a low +moaning. Listening intently he found the direction +of the sound, and then moved towards it. He found +there, at the side of the path, a white man named +Neville, nearly dead. He was moaning with the pain +of the fever, yet unconscious.</p> + +<p>Taking his bottle, Ruatoka poured a little water +down the throat of the man. He then took the long +piece of cloth, wound it round Neville, took the two ends +in his hands, and stooping, he pulled and strained with +all his great strength, until at last Neville lay like a +sack upon his shoulders. Staggering along, Ruatoka +climbed the hills that rose 300 feet high. Again and +again he was bound to rest, for the man on his shoulders +was as heavy as Ruatoka himself. He tottered +down the hill path, and at last, just as the first light of +<a name="Page_129" id="Page_129"></a>dawn was breaking over the eastern hills, Ruatoka +staggered into his home, laid the sick man upon the only +bed he had, and then himself laid down upon the floor, +wearied almost to death. There he slept while his wife +nursed and tended the fever-stricken Neville back to +life.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>Over a thousand years before that day Wilfrid<a name="FNanchor_43_43" id="FNanchor_43_43"></a><a href="#Footnote_43_43" class="fnanchor">[43]</a> had +brought life and joy to the starving Saxons of the +South coast of England. A hundred years before that +day white men, the great-great-grandchildren of those +Saxons, had started out in <i>The Duff</i> and, sailing across +the world, had taken life and joy in the place of the terror +of demons and the death by the club to the men of +the Islands of the Seas.</p> + +<p>Now Ruatoka, the South Sea islander, having in his +heart the same brave spirit of the Good Shepherd—that +spirit of the Good Samaritan, of help and preparedness, +of courage and of chivalry, had carried life and joy +back to the North Sea islander, the Briton who had +fallen by the roadside in Papua.</p> + +<p>Ruatoka was a brown Greatheart. It was with him +as it must be with all brave sons who serve that great +Captain, Jesus Christ: he wanted to be in the front of +the battle. When the great Tamate was killed and +eaten by the cannibals of Goaribari, Ruatoka wrote a +letter to a missionary who lived and still lives in Papua. +This is the end of the letter:</p> + +<p>"Hear my wish. It is a great wish. The remainder +of my strength I would spend in the place where Tamate +was killed. In that village I would live. In that +<a name="Page_130" id="Page_130"></a>place where they killed men, Jesus Christ's name and +His word I would teach to the people that they may become +Jesus' children. My wish is just this. You know +it. I have spoken.</p> + +<p class="author"><span class="smcap">Ruatoka</span>."</p> + +<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3><p><a name="Page_131" id="Page_131"></a></p> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_42_42" id="Footnote_42_42"></a><a href="#FNanchor_42_42"><span class="label">[42]</span></a> James Chalmers: see <a href="#CHAPTER_XIII">Chapter XIII</a>.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_43_43" id="Footnote_43_43"></a><a href="#FNanchor_43_43"><span class="label">[43]</span></a> See <a href="#CHAPTER_II">Chapter II</a>.</p></div> +</div> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<h2><a name="Book_Three_THE_PATHFINDERS_OF_AFRICA" id="Book_Three_THE_PATHFINDERS_OF_AFRICA"></a>Book Three: THE PATHFINDERS OF AFRICA</h2> + + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><a name="Page_132" id="Page_132"></a></p><p><a name="Page_133" id="Page_133"></a></p> +<h3><a name="CHAPTER_XV" id="CHAPTER_XV"></a>CHAPTER XV</h3> + +<h4>THE MAN WHO WOULD GO ON</h4> + +<p class='center'><i>David Livingstone</i></p> + +<p class='center'>(Dates born 1813, died 1873)</p> + + +<p>There was a deathly stillness in the hot African air +as two bronzed Scots strode along the narrow forest +path.</p> + +<p>The one, a young, keen-eyed doctor,<a name="FNanchor_44_44" id="FNanchor_44_44"></a><a href="#Footnote_44_44" class="fnanchor">[44]</a> glanced quickly +through the trees and occasionally turned aside to pick +some strange orchid and to slip it into his collecting +case. The other strode steadily along with that curious, +"resolute forward tread" of his.<a name="FNanchor_45_45" id="FNanchor_45_45"></a><a href="#Footnote_45_45" class="fnanchor">[45]</a> He was David Livingstone. +Behind them came a string of African bearers +carrying in bundles on their heads the tents and food +of the explorers.</p> + +<p>Suddenly, with a crunch, Livingstone's heel went +through a white object half hidden in the long grass—a +thing like an ostrich's egg. He stooped—and his +strong, bronzed face was twisted with mingled sorrow +and anger, as, looking into the face of his younger +friend, he gritted out between his clenched teeth, "The +slave-raiders again!"</p> + +<p><a name="Page_134" id="Page_134"></a>It was the whitening skull of an African boy.</p> + +<p>For weeks those two Britons had driven their little +steamer (the <i>Asthmatic</i> they called her, because of her +wheezing engines) up the Zambesi river and were +now exploring its tributary the Shiré.</p> + +<p>Each morning, before they could start the ship's +engines, they had been obliged to take poles and push +from between the paddles of the wheels the dead bodies +of Africans—men, women, and children—slain bodies +which had floated down from the villages that the Arab +slave-raiders had burned and sacked. Livingstone was +out on the long, bloody trail of the slaver, the trail that +stretched on and on into the heart of Africa where no +white man had ever been.</p> + +<p>This negro boy's skull, whitening on the path, was +only one more link in the long, sickening shackle-chain +of slavery that girdled down-trodden Africa.</p> + +<p>The two men strode on. The forest path opened out +to a broad clearing. They were in an African village. +But no voice was heard and no step broke the horrible +silence. It was a village of death. The sun blazed on +the charred heaps which now marked the sites of happy +African homes; the gardens were desolate and utterly +destroyed. The village was wiped out. Those who +had submitted were far away, trudging through the forest, +under the lash of the slaver; those who had been +too old to walk or too brave to be taken without fight +were slain.</p> + +<p>The heart of Livingstone burned with one great +resolve—he would track this foul thing into the very +heart of Africa and then blazon its horrors to the whole +world.</p> + +<p><a name="Page_135" id="Page_135"></a>The two men trudged back to the river bank again. +Now, with their brown companions, they took the +shallow boat that they had brought on the deck of the +<i>Asthmatic</i>, and headed still farther up the Shiré river +from the Zambesi toward the unknown Highlands of +Central Africa.</p> + + +<p><i>Facing Spears and Arrows</i></p> + +<p>Only the sing-song chant of the Africans as they +swung their paddles, and the frightened shriek of a +glittering parrot, broke the stillness as the boat pushed +northward against the river current.</p> + +<p>The paddles flashed again, and as the boat came +round a curve in the river they were faced by a sight +that made every man sit, paddle in hand, motionless +with horror. The bank facing them in the next curve +of the river was black with men. The ranks of savages +bristled with spears and arrows. A chief yelled to them +to turn back. Then a cloud of arrows flew over the +boat.</p> + +<p>"Go on," said Livingstone quietly to the Africans. +Their paddles took the water and the boat leapt toward +the savage semi-circle on the bank. The water was +shallower now. Before any one realised what was +happening Livingstone had swung over the edge of the +boat and, up to his waist in water, was wading ashore +with his arms above his head.</p> + +<p>"It is peace!" he called out, and waded on toward +the barbs of a hundred arrows and spears. The men +in the boat sat breathless, waiting to see their leader +fall with a score of spears through his body. But the +savages on the bank were transfixed with amazement at<a name="Page_136" id="Page_136"></a> +Livingstone's sheer audacity. Awed by something god-like +in this unflinching and unarmed courage, no finger +let fly a single arrow.</p> + +<p>"You think," he called to the chief, "that I am a +slave-raider." For Livingstone knew that he had never +in all his wanderings been attacked by Africans save +where they had first been infuriated by the cruel raiders.</p> + +<p>The chief scowled.</p> + +<p>"See," cried Livingstone, baring his arm to show his +white skin as he again and again had done when threatened +by Africans, "is this the colour of the men who +come to make slaves and to kill?"</p> + +<p>The savages gazed with astonishment. They had +never before seen so white a skin.</p> + +<p>"No," Livingstone went on, "this is the skin of the +tribe that has heart toward the African."</p> + +<p>Almost unconsciously the man had dropped the spear +points and arrow heads as he was speaking. The chief +listened while Livingstone, who was now on the bank, +told the savages how he had come across the great +waters from a far-off land with a message of peace and +goodwill.</p> + +<p>Unarmed and with a dauntless heroism the "white +man who would go on" had won a great victory over +that tribe. He now passed on in his boat up the river +and over rapids toward the wonderful shining Highlands +in the heart of Africa.</p> + + +<p><i>"Deliverance to the Captives"</i></p> + +<p>Dr. Kirk was recalled to England by the British +Government; but Livingstone trudged on in increasing +loneliness over mountains and across rivers and lakes, +<a name="Page_137" id="Page_137"></a>plunging through marshes, racked a score of times with +fever, robbed of his medicines, threatened again and +again by the guns of the slave-raiding Arabs and the +spears and clubs of savage head-hunters, bearing on +his bent shoulders the Cross of the negroes' agony—slavery, +till at last, alone and on his knees in the dead of +night, our Greatheart crossed his last River, into the +presence of his Father in heaven.</p> + +<p>Yet still, though his body was dead, his spirit would +go on. For the life Livingstone lived, the death he +died, and the record he wrote of the slave-raiders' horrible +cruelties thrilled all Britain to heal that "open sore +of the world." Queen Victoria made Dr. Kirk her +consul at Zanzibar, and told him to make the Sultan of +Zanzibar order all slave-trading through that great +market to cease. And to-day, because of David Livingstone, +through all the thousands of miles of Africa +over which he trod, no man dare lay the shackles of +slavery on another. To-day, where Livingstone saw +the slave-market in Zanzibar, a grand church stands, +built by negro hands, and in that cathedral you may +hear the negro clergy reading such words as—</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"The voice of one crying in the wilderness,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Prepare ye the way of the Lord,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Make His paths straight,"<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>and African boys singing in their own tongue words +that sum up the whole life of David Livingstone.</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"He hath sent me to heal the broken-hearted,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To preach deliverance to the captives."<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3><p><a name="Page_138" id="Page_138"></a></p> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_44_44" id="Footnote_44_44"></a><a href="#FNanchor_44_44"><span class="label">[44]</span></a> Dr Kirk, now Sir John Kirk, G.C.M.G., who, leaning upon his +African ebony stick and gazing with his now dimmed eyes into the glow +of the fire, told me many stories of his adventures with Livingstone on +his Zambesi journeyings, including this one. See next chapter.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_45_45" id="Footnote_45_45"></a><a href="#FNanchor_45_45"><span class="label">[45]</span></a> A friend of mine asked a very old African in Matabeleland whether—as +a boy—he remembered Dr. Livingstone. "Oh, yes," replied the aged +Matabele, "he came into our village out of the bush walking thus," and +the old man got up and stumped along, imitating the determined tread of +Livingstone, which, after sixty years, was the one thing he remembered.</p></div> +</div> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h3><a name="CHAPTER_XVI" id="CHAPTER_XVI"></a>CHAPTER XVI</h3> + +<h4>THE BLACK PRINCE OF AFRICA</h4> + +<p class='center'><i>Khama</i></p> + +<p class='center'>(Dates 1850—the present day)</p> + + +<p>One day men came running into a village in South +Africa to say that a strange man, whose body was +covered with clothes and whose face was not black, +was walking toward their homes. He was coming +from the South.</p> + +<p>Never before had such a man been seen in their tribe. +So there was great excitement and a mighty chattering +went through the round wattle of mud huts with their +circular thatched roofs.</p> + +<p>The African Chief, Sekhome—who was the head of +this Bamangwato tribe and who was also a noted witch-doctor—started +out along the southward trail to meet +the white man. By his side ran his eldest son. He was +a lithe, blithe boy; his chocolate coloured skin shone and +the muscles rippled as he trotted along. He was so +swift that his name was the name of the antelope that +gallops across the veldt. Cama is what the Bamangwato +call the antelope. Khama is how we spell the boy's +name.</p> + +<p>He gazed in wonder as he saw a sturdy man wearing +clothes such as he had not seen before—what we call +coat and hat, trousers and boots. He looked into the +<a name="Page_139" id="Page_139"></a>bronzed face of the white man and saw that his eyes +and mouth were kind. Together they walked back into +the village. Chief Sekhome found that the white man's +name was David Livingstone; and that he was a kind +doctor who could make boys and men better when they +were ill, with medicines out of a black japanned box.</p> + +<p>When evening came the boy Khama saw the strange +white man open another box and take out a curious +thing which seemed to open yet was full of hundreds +and hundreds of leaves. Khama had never seen such +a thing in his life and he could not understand why Livingstone +opened it and kept looking at it for a long +time, for he had never seen a book before and did not +even know what letters were or what reading was.</p> + +<p>It seemed wonderful to him when he heard that that +book could speak to Livingstone without making any +sound and that it told him about the One Infinite, Holy, +Loving God, Who is Father of all men, black or brown +or white, and Whose Son, Jesus Christ, came to teach +us all to love God and to love one another. For the +book was the Bible which Livingstone all through his +heroic exploring of Africa read each day.</p> + +<p>So Livingstone passed on from the village; but this +boy Khama never forgot him, and in time—as we shall +see—other white men came and taught Khama himself +to read that same book and worship that same God.</p> + + +<p><i>The Fight with the Lion</i></p> + +<p>Meanwhile strange adventures came to the growing +young Khama. This is the story of some of them:</p> + +<p>The leaping flames of a hunting camp-fire threw upon +<a name="Page_140" id="Page_140"></a>the dark background of thorn trees weird shadows of +the men who squatted in a circle on the ground, talking.</p> + +<p>The men were all Africans, the picked hunters from +the tribe of the Bamangwato. They were out on the +spoor of a great lion that had made himself the terror +of the tribe. Night after night the lion had leapt +among their oxen and had slain the choicest in the +chief's herds. Again and again the hunters had gone +out on the trail of the ferocious beast; but always they +returned empty-handed, though boasting loudly of what +they would do when they should face the lion.</p> + +<p>"To-morrow, yes, to-morrow," cried a young Bamangwato +hunter rolling his eyes, "I will slay <i>tau e +bogale</i>—the fierce lion."</p> + +<p>The voices of the men rose on the night air as the +whole group declared that the beast should ravage their +herds no more—the whole group, except one. This +young man's tense face and the keen eyes that glowed +in the firelight showed his contempt for those who +swaggered so much and did so little. He was Khama, +the son of Sekhome, the chief. The wild flames +gleamed on him as he stood there, full six feet of tireless +manhood leaning on his gun, like a superb statue +carved in ebony. Those swift, spare limbs of his, that +could keep pace with a galloping horse, gave him the +right to his name, Khama—the Antelope.</p> + +<p>The voices dropped, and the men, rolling themselves +in the skins of wild beasts, lay down and slept—all +except one, whose eyes watched in the darkness as sleeplessly +as the stars. When they were asleep Khama +took up his gun and went out into the starry night.</p> + +<p>The night passed. As the first flush of dawn paled +<a name="Page_141" id="Page_141"></a>the stars, and the men around the cold ashes of the fire +sat up, they gazed in awed amazement. For they saw, +striding toward them, their tall young chieftain; and +over his shoulders hung the tawny skin and mane of a +full-grown king lion. Alone in the night he had slain +the terror of the tribe!</p> + +<p>The men who had boasted of what they meant to do +and had never performed, never heard Khama—either +at that time or later—make any mention of this great +feat.</p> + +<p>It was no wonder that the great Bamangwato tribe +looked at the tall, silent, resolute young chieftain and, +comparing him with his crafty father Sekhome and his +treacherous, cowardly younger brother Khamane, said, +"Khama is our <i>boikanyo</i>—our confidence."</p> + + +<p><i>The Fight with the Witch-doctors</i></p> + +<p>The years went by; and that fierce old villain Sekhome +plotted and laid ambush against the life of his +valiant son, Khama. Men who followed David Livingstone +into Africa had come as missionaries to his tribe +and had taught him the story of Jesus and given him +the knowledge of reading and writing. So Khama had +become a Christian, though Sekhome his father was +still a heathen witch-doctor. Khama would have nothing +to do with the horrible ceremonies by which the +boys of the tribe were initiated into manhood; nor +would he look on the heathen rain-making incantations, +though his father smoked with anger against him. +Under a thousand insults and threats of death Khama +stood silent, never insulting nor answering again, and +always treating with respect his unnatural father.</p> + +<p><a name="Page_142" id="Page_142"></a>"You, as the son of a great chief, must marry other +wives," said old Sekhome, whose wives could not be +numbered. Young Khama firmly refused, for the +Word of God which ruled his life told him that he must +have but one wife. Sekhome foamed with futile rage.</p> + +<p>"You must call in the rain-doctors to make rain," +said Sekhome, as the parched earth cracked under the +flaming sun. Khama knew that their wild incantations +had no power to make rain, but that God alone ruled +the heavens. So he refused.</p> + +<p>Sekhome now made his last and most fearful attack. +He was a witch-doctor and master of the witch-doctors +whose ghoulish incantations made the Bamangwato +tremble in terror of unseen devils.</p> + +<p>One night the persecuted Khama woke at the sound +of strange clashing and chanting. Looking out he saw +the fitful flame of a fire. Going out from his hut, he +saw the <i>lolwapa</i> or court in front of it lit up with weird +flames round which the black wizards danced with +horns and lions' teeth clashing about their necks, and +with manes of beasts' hair waving above their horrible +faces. As they danced they cast charms into the fire +and chanted loathsome spells and terrible curses on +Khama. As a boy he had been taught that these witch-doctors +had the power to slay or to smite with foul +diseases. He would have been more than human if he +had not felt a shiver of nameless dread at this lurid and +horrible dance of death.</p> + +<p>Yet he never hesitated. He strode forward swiftly, +anger and contempt on his face, scattering the witch-doctors +from his path and leaping full upon their fire of +<a name="Page_143" id="Page_143"></a>charms, stamped it out and scattered its embers broadcast. +The wizards fled into the darkness of the night.</p> + + +<p><i>The Fight with the Kaffir Beer</i></p> + +<p>At last Khama's treacherous old father, Sekhome, +died. Khama was acclaimed the supreme chief of all +the Bamangwato.<a name="FNanchor_46_46" id="FNanchor_46_46"></a><a href="#Footnote_46_46" class="fnanchor">[46]</a> He galloped out at the head of his +horsemen to pursue Lobengula, the ferocious chief of +the Matabele who had struck fear into the Bamangwato +for many years. Even Lobengula, who to his +dying day carried in his neck a bullet from Khama's +gun, said of him, "The Bamangwato are dogs, but +Khama is a man."</p> + +<p>Khama had now freed his people from the terror of +the lion, the tyranny of witch-doctors, and the dread of +the Matabele. Yet the deadliest enemy of Khama and +the most loathsome tyrant of the Bamangwato was still +in power,—the strong drink which degrades the African +to unspeakable depths.</p> + +<p>Even as Khama charged at the head of his men into +the breaking ranks of the Matabele, his younger +brother, Khamane, whom he had put in charge of his +city in his absence, said to the people: "You may brew +beer again now." Many of the people did not obey, but +others took the corn of the tribe and brewed beer from +it.</p> + +<p>At night the cries of beaten women rose, and the +weird chants of incantations and of foul unclean dances +were heard. Khamane called the older men together +around his fire. Pots of beer passed from hand to +hand. As the men grew fuddled they became bolder +<a name="Page_144" id="Page_144"></a>and more boastful. Khamane then spoke to them and +said, "Why should Khama rule you? Remember he +forbids you to make and to drink beer. He has done +away with the dances of the young men. He will not +let you make charms or throw enchanted dice or make +incantations for rain. He is a Christian. If I ruled +you, you should do all these things."</p> + +<p>When Khama rode back again into his town he saw +men and women lying drunk under the eaves of their +huts and others reeling along the road. At night the +sounds of chants and drinking dances rose on the air.</p> + +<p>His anger was terrible. For once he lost his temper. +He seized a burning torch and running to the hut of +Khamane set fire to the roof and burned the house +down over his drunken brother's head. He ordered all +the beer that had been brewed to be seized, and poured +it out upon the veldt. He knew that he was fighting a +fiercer enemy than the Matabele, a foe that would throttle +his tribe and destroy all his people if he did not +conquer it. The old men of the tribe muttered against +him and plotted his death. He met them face to face. +His eyes flashed.</p> + +<p>"When I was still a lad," he said, "I used to think +how I would govern my town and what kind of a kingdom +it should be. One thing I determined, I would +not rule over a drunken town or people. <span class="smcap">I will not +have drink in this town</span>. If you must have it you +must go."</p> + + +<p><i>The Fight with the White Man's "Fire-water"</i></p> + +<p>Khama had conquered for the moment. But white +men, Englishmen, came to the town. They set up +<a name="Page_145" id="Page_145"></a>stores. And in the stores they began to sell brandy +from large casks.</p> + +<p>The drinking of spirits has more terrible effects on +the African than even on white men. Once he starts +drinking, the African cannot stop and is turned into a +sot. The ships of the white man have been responsible +to a terrible extent for sending out the "fire-water" to +Africa.</p> + +<p>Khama called the white traders in the tribe together.</p> + +<p>"It is my desire," he said, "that no strong drink +shall be sold in my town."</p> + +<p>"We will not bring the great casks of brandy," they +replied, "but we hope you will allow us to have cases of +bottles as they are for medicine."</p> + +<p>"I consent," said Khama, "but there must be no +drunkenness."</p> + +<p>"Certainly," the white men replied, "there shall be +no drunkenness."</p> + +<p>In a few days one of the white traders had locked +himself into his house in drunken delirium, naked and +raving. Morning after morning Khama rose before +daybreak to try and get to the man when he was sober, +but all the time he was drunk. Then one morning this +man gathered other white men together in a house and +they sat drinking and then started fighting one another.</p> + +<p>A boy ran to Khama to tell him. The chief went to +the house and strode in. The room was a wreck. The +men lay senseless with their white shirts stained with +blood.</p> + +<p>Khama with set, stern face turned and walked to the +house where he often went for counsel, the home of +his friend, Mr. Hepburn, the missionary. Mr. Hep<a name="Page_146" id="Page_146"></a>burn +lay ill with fever. Khama told him what the white +men had done. Hepburn burned with shame and anger +that his own fellow-countrymen should so disgrace +themselves. Ill as he was he rose and went out with +the chief and saw with his own eyes that it was as +Khama said.</p> + +<p>"I will clear them all out of my town," cried the chief.</p> + +<p>It was Saturday night.</p> + + +<p><i>Khama's Decisive Hour</i></p> + +<p>On the Monday morning Khama sent word to all the +white men to come to him. It was a cold, dreary day. +The chief sat waiting in the <i>Kgotla</i><a name="FNanchor_47_47" id="FNanchor_47_47"></a><a href="#Footnote_47_47" class="fnanchor">[47]</a> while the white +men came together before him. Hepburn, the missionary, +sat by his side. Those who knew Khama saw as +soon as they looked into his grim face that no will on +earth could turn him from his decisions that day.</p> + +<p>"You white men,"<a name="FNanchor_48_48" id="FNanchor_48_48"></a><a href="#Footnote_48_48" class="fnanchor">[48]</a> he said to them sternly, "have +insulted and despised me in my own town because I am +a black man. If you despise us black men, what do you +want here in the country that God has given to us? +Go back to your own country."</p> + +<p>His voice became hard with a tragic sternness.</p> + +<p>"I am trying," he went on, "to lead my people to act +according to the word of God which we have received +from you white people, and yet <i>you</i> show them an example +of wickedness such as we never knew. You," +and his voice rose in burning scorn, "you, the people +of the word of God! You know that some of my own +brothers"—he was referring to Khamane especially—<a name="Page_147" id="Page_147"></a>"have +learned to like the drink, and you know that I +do not want them to see it even, that they may forget +the habit. Yet you not only bring it in and offer it to +them, but you try to tempt <i>me</i> with it.</p> + +<p>"I make an end of it to-day. Go! Take your cattle +and leave my town and <i>never come back again</i>!"</p> + +<p>No man moved or spoke. They were utterly shamed +and bewildered. Then one white man, who had lived +in the town since he was a lad, pleaded with Khama for +pity as an old friend.</p> + +<p>"You," said the chief with biting irony, "my friend? +You—the ringleader of those who despise my laws. +You are my worst enemy. You pray for pity? No! +for you I have no pity. It is my duty to have pity on +my people over whom God placed me, and I am going +to show them pity to-day; and that is my duty to them +and to God.... Go!"</p> + +<p>And they all went.</p> + +<p>Then the chief ordered in his young warriors and +huntsmen.</p> + +<p>"No one of you," he said, "is to drink beer." Then +he called a great meeting of the whole town. In serried +masses thousand upon thousand the Bamangwato faced +their great chief. He lifted up his voice:</p> + +<p>"I, Khama, your chief, order that you shall not make +beer. You take the corn that God has given to us in +answer to our prayers and you destroy it. Nay, you +not only destroy it, but you make stuff with it that +causes mischief among you."</p> + +<p>There was some murmuring.</p> + +<p>His eyes flashed like steel.</p> + +<p><a name="Page_148" id="Page_148"></a>"You can kill me," he said, "but you cannot conquer +me."</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + + +<p><i>The Black Prince of Eighty</i></p> + +<p>If you rode as a guest toward Khama's town over +seventy years after those far-off days when Livingstone +first went there, as you came in sight of the great +stone church that the chief has built, you would see +tearing across the African plain a whirlwind of dust. +It would race toward you, with the soft thunder of +hoofs in the loose soil. When the horses were almost +upon you—with a hand of steel—chief Khama would +rein in his charger and his bodyguard would pull up +behind him.</p> + +<p>Over eighty years old, grey and wrinkled, he would +spring from his horse, without help, to greet you—still +Khama, the Antelope. Old as he is, he is as alert +as ever. He heard that a great all Africa aeroplane +route was planned after the Great War. At once he +offered to make a great aerodrome, and the day at last +came when Khama—eighty-five years old—who had +seen Livingstone, the first white man to visit his tribe—stood +watching the first aeroplane come bringing a +young officer from the clouds.</p> + +<p>He stands there, the splendid chief of the Bamangwato—"steel-true, +blade-straight." He is the Black +Prince of Africa—who has indeed won his spurs +against the enemies of his people.</p> + +<p>And if you were to ask him the secret of the power +by which he has done these things, Khama the silent, +who is not used to boasting, would no doubt lead you +<a name="Page_149" id="Page_149"></a>at dawn to the <i>Kgotla</i> before his huts. There at every +sunrise he gathers his people together for their morning +prayers at the feet of the Father of our Lord Jesus +Christ, the Captain and King of our Great Crusade for +the saving of Africa.</p> + +<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3><p><a name="Page_150" id="Page_150"></a></p> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_46_46" id="Footnote_46_46"></a><a href="#FNanchor_46_46"><span class="label">[46]</span></a> In 1875.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_47_47" id="Footnote_47_47"></a><a href="#FNanchor_47_47"><span class="label">[47]</span></a> The chiefs open-air enclosure for official meetings.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_48_48" id="Footnote_48_48"></a><a href="#FNanchor_48_48"><span class="label">[48]</span></a> These are Khama's own words taken down at the time by Hepburn.</p></div> +</div> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h3><a name="CHAPTER_XVII" id="CHAPTER_XVII"></a>CHAPTER XVII</h3> + +<h4>THE KNIGHT OF THE SLAVE GIRLS</h4> + +<p class='center'><i>George Grenfell</i></p> + +<p class='center'>(Dates, b. 1849, d. 1906)</p> + + +<p><i>The Building of the Steamship</i></p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>When David Livingstone lay dying in his hastily-built hut, +in the heart of Africa, with his black companions Susi and +Chumah attending him, almost his last words were, "How +far away is the Luapula?"</p> + +<p>He knew that the river to which the Africans gave that +name was only a short distance away and that it flowed +northward. He thought that it might be the upper reaches +of the Nile, which had been sought by men through thousands +of years, but which none had ever explored.</p> + +<p>Livingstone died in that hut (1873) and never knew what +Stanley, following in his footsteps, discovered later (1876-7), +viz., that the Luapula was really the upper stretch of the +Congo, the second largest river in the world (3000 miles +long), flowing into the Atlantic. The basin of the Congo +would cover the whole of Europe from the Black Sea to the +English Channel.</p> + +<p>In the year when Livingstone died, and before Stanley +started to explore the Congo, a young man, who had been +thrilled by reading the travels of Livingstone, sailed to the +West Coast of Africa to the Kameruns.</p> + +<p>His name was George Grenfell, a Cornish boy (born at +Sancreed, four miles from Penzance, in England), who +was brought up in Birmingham. He was apprenticed at +fifteen to a firm of hardware and machinery dealers. Here +he picked up, as a lad, some knowledge of machinery that +helped him later on the Congo. He had been thrilled +to meet at Bristol College, where he was trained for +his missionary work, a thin, worn, heroic man of tried +steel, Alfred Saker, the great Kamerun missionary, and Gren<a name="Page_151" id="Page_151"></a>fell +leapt for joy to go out to the dangerous West Coast +of Africa, where he worked hard, teaching the Africans to +make tables and bricks and to print and read, healing them +and preaching to them.</p> + +<p>When Stanley came down the Congo to the sea and electrified +the world by the story of the great river, Grenfell +and the Baptist Missionary Society which he served conceived +the daring and splendid plan of starting a chain of mission +stations right from the mouth of the Congo eastward across +Africa. In 1878 Grenfell was on his way up the river—travelling +along narrow paths flanked by grass often fifteen +feet high, and crossing swamps and rivers, till after thirteen +attempts and in eighteen months he reached Stanley Pool, +February 1881. A thousand miles of river lay between Stanley +Pool and Stanley Falls, and even above Stanley Falls lay +thirteen hundred miles of navigable river. Canoes were +perilous. Hippopotami upset them, and men were dragged +down and eaten by crocodiles. They must have a steamer +right up there beyond the Falls in the very heart of Africa.</p> + +<p>Grenfell went home to England, and the steamer <i>Peace</i> +was built on the Thames, Grenfell watching everything being +made from the crank to the funnel. She was built, launched, +and tried on the Thames; then taken to pieces and packed +in 800 packages, weighing 65 lbs. each, and taken to the +mouth of the Congo. On the heads and shoulders of a +thousand men the whole ship and the food of the party were +carried past the rapids, over a thousand miles along narrow +paths, in peril of snakes and leopards and enemy savages, +over streams crossed by bridges of vine-creepers, through +swamps, across ravines.</p> + +<p>Grenfell's engineer, who was to have put the ship together, +died. At last they reached Stanley Pool. Grenfell with +eight negroes started to try to build the ship. It was a tremendous +task. Grenfell said the <i>Peace</i> was "prayed together." +It was prayer and hard work and gumption. At +last the ship was launched, steam was up, the <i>Peace</i> began +to move. "She lives, master, she lives!" shouted the excited +Africans.</p> + +<p>A thousand thrilling adventures came to him as he steamed +up and down the river, teaching and preaching, often in the +face of poisoned arrows and spears. We are now going to +hear the story of one adventure.</p></div> + +<p><a name="Page_152" id="Page_152"></a><i>The Steamer's Journey</i></p> + +<p>The crocodiles drowsily dosing in the slime of the +Congo river bank stirred uneasily as a strange sound +broke the silence of the blazing African morning. +They lifted their heavy jaws and swung their heads +down stream. Their beady eyes caught sight of a +Thing mightier than a thousand crocodiles. It was +pushing its way slowly up stream.</p> + +<p>The sound was the throb of the screw of the steamer +from whose funnel a light ribbon of smoke floated +across the river. An awning shaded the whole deck +from bow to stern. On the top of the awning, under a +little square canopy, stood a tall young negro; the +muscles in his sturdy arms and his broad shoulders +rippled under his dark skin as the wheel swung round +in his swift, strong hands.</p> + +<p>The steamer drove up stream while the crocodiles, +startled by the wash of the boat, slid sullenly down the +bank and dived.</p> + +<p>A short, bearded man, dressed in white duck, stood +on deck at the bows, where the steamer's name, <i>Peace</i>, +was painted. He was George Grenfell. His keen eyes +gleamed through the spectacles that rested on his +strong, arched nose. By his side stood his wife, looking +out up the river. They were searching for the landing-place +and the hut-roofs of some friendly river-side +town.</p> + +<p>At last as the bows swung round the next bend in +the river they saw a village. The Africans rushed to +the bank and hurriedly pushed out their tree-trunk +canoes. Grenfell shouted an order. A bell rang. The +<a name="Page_153" id="Page_153"></a>screw stopped and the steamer lay-to while he climbed +down into the ship's canoe and was paddled ashore. +The wondering people pushed and jostled around them +to see this strange man with his white face.</p> + + +<p><i>The Slave Girls</i></p> + +<p>As they walked up among the huts, speaking with +the men of the town, Grenfell came to an open space. +As his quick eyes looked about he saw two little girls +standing bound with cords. They were tethered like +goats to a stake. Their little faces and round eyes +looked all forlorn. Even the wonder of the strange +bearded white man hardly kept back the tears that filled +their eyes.</p> + +<p>"What are these?" he asked, turning to the chief.</p> + +<p>The African pointed up the river. Grenfell's heart +burned in him, as the chief told how he and his men had +swept up the river in their canoes armed with their +spears and bows and arrows and had raided another +tribe.</p> + +<p>"And these," said the chief, pointing to the girls, +who began to wonder what was going to happen, "these +are two girls that we captured. They are some of our +booty. They are slaves. They are tied there till someone +will come and buy them."</p> + +<p>Grenfell could not resist the silent call of their woeful +faces. Quickly he gave beads and cloth to the chief, +and took the little girls back with him down to the +river bank. As they jumped into the canoe to go +aboard the S.S. <i>Peace</i>, the two girls wondered what +this strange new master would do with them. Would +<a name="Page_154" id="Page_154"></a>he be cruel? Yet his eyes looked kind through those +funny, round, shining things balanced on his nose.</p> + +<p>The girls at once forgot all their sorrows when they +jumped on board this wonderful river monster. They +felt it shiver and throb and begin to move. The bank +went farther and farther away. The <i>Peace</i> had again +started up stream.</p> + +<p>The girls stood in wonder and gazed with open eyes +as the banks slid past. They saw the birds all green +and red flashing along the surface of the water, and +the huge hippopotami sullenly plunging into the river +like the floating islands of earth that sail down the +Congo. Their quick eyes noted the quaint iguana, like +giant lizards, sunning themselves on the branches of +the trees over the stream and then dropping like stones +into the stream as the steamer passed.</p> + + +<p><i>The Slave Girl's Brother</i></p> + +<p>Then, suddenly, as they came round a bend in the +river, all was changed. There ahead Grenfell saw a +river town. The canoes were being manned rapidly by +warriors. The bank bristled with spears in the hands +of ferocious savages, whose faces were made horrible +by gashes and loathsome tattooing. In each canoe men +stood with bows in their hands and arrows drawn to +the head. The throb of the engines ceased. The ship +slowed up. But the canoes came on.</p> + +<p>The men of this Congo town only knew one thing. +Enemies had, only a few weeks earlier, come from +down-river, had raided their town, burned their huts, +killed many of their braves, and carried away their +<a name="Page_155" id="Page_155"></a>children. Here were men who had also come from +down the river. They must, therefore, be enemies.</p> + +<p>Their chief shouted an order. In an instant a score +of spears hurtled at the ship and rattled on the steel +screens around the deck. The yell of the battle-cry of +the tribe echoed and re-echoed down the river.</p> + +<p>Grenfell was standing by the little girls. Suddenly +one of them with dancing eyes shouted and waved her +arms.</p> + +<p>"What is it?" cried Grenfell to her.</p> + +<p>"See—see!" she cried, pointing to a warrior in a +canoe who was just poising a spear, "that is my +brother! That is my brother! This is my town!"</p> + +<p>"Call to him," said Grenfell.</p> + +<p>Her thin childish voice rang out. But no one heard +it among the warriors. Again she cried out to her +brother. The only answer was a hail of spears and +arrows.</p> + +<p>Grenfell turned rapidly and shouted an order to the +engineer. Instantly a shriek, more wild and piercing +than the combined yells of the whole tribe, rent the air. +Again the shriek went up. The warriors stood transfixed +with spear and arrow in hand like statues in +ebony. There was a moment's intense and awful +silence. They had never before heard the whistle of a +steamer!</p> + +<p>"Shout again—quickly," whispered Grenfell to the +little African girl.</p> + +<p>In a second the child's shrill voice rang out in the +silence across the water, crying first her brother's name, +and then her own.</p> + +<p>The astonished warrior dropped his spear, caught up +<a name="Page_156" id="Page_156"></a>his paddle and—in a few swift strokes—drove his +canoe towards the steamer. His astonishment at seeing +his sister aboard overcame all his dread of this +shrieking, floating island that moved without sails or +paddles.</p> + +<p>Quickly she told her story of how the strange white +man in the great canoe that smoked had found her in +the village of their enemies, had saved her from slavery, +and—now, had brought her safely home again. The +story passed from lip to lip. Every spear and bow and +arrow was dropped.</p> + +<p>The girls were quickly put ashore, and as Grenfell +walked up the village street every warrior who had but +a few moments before been seeking his blood was now +gazing at this strange friend who had brought back +to the tribe the daughters whom they thought they had +lost for ever.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>Grenfell went on with his work in face of fever, inter-tribal +fighting, slave-raiders, the horrors of wife and slave-slaughter +at funerals, witch-killing—and in some ways worse still, the +horrible cruelties of the Belgian rubber-traders—for over a +quarter of a century.</p> + +<p>In June 1906, accompanied by his negro companions, he +lay at Yalemba, sick with fever. Two of the Africans wrote +a letter for help to other missionaries:</p> + +<p>"We are very sorrow," they wrote, "because out Master +is very sick. So now we beging you one of you let him +come to help Mr Grenfell please. We think now is near to +die, but we don't know how to do with him. Yours,</p> + +<p class='author'> +DISASI MAKULO,<br /> +MASCOO LUVUSU."<br /> +</p> + +<p>To-day all up the fifteen hundred miles of Congo waterway +the power of the work done by Grenfell and the men who +came with him and after him has changed all the life. Gone +are the slave-raiders, the inter-tribal wars, the cruelties of +the white men, along that line. There stand instead negroes +<a name="Page_157" id="Page_157"></a>who cap make bricks, build houses, turn a lathe; engineers, +printers, bookbinders, blacksmiths, carpenters, worshipping +in churches built with their own hands. But beyond, and +among the myriad tributaries and the vast forests millions of +men have never yet even heard of the love of God in Jesus +Christ, and still work their hideous cruelties.</p> + +<p>So Grenfell, like Livingstone, opened a door. It stands +open.</p></div> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><a name="Page_158" id="Page_158"></a></p> +<h3><a name="CHAPTER_XVIII" id="CHAPTER_XVIII"></a>CHAPTER XVIII</h3> + +<h4>"A MAN WHO CAN TURN HIS HAND TO ANYTHING"</h4> + +<p class='center'><i>Alexander Mackay</i></p> + +<p class='center'>(Dates 1863-1876)</p> + + +<p>The inquisitive village folk stared over their garden +gates at Mr. Mackay, the minister of the Free Kirk of +Rhynie, a small Aberdeenshire village, as he stood with +his thirteen-year-old boy gazing into the road at their +feet. The father was apparently scratching at the +stones and dust with his stick. The villagers shook +their heads.</p> + +<p>"Fat's the minister glowerin' at, wi' his loon Alic, +among the stoor o' the turnpike?"<a name="FNanchor_49_49" id="FNanchor_49_49"></a><a href="#Footnote_49_49" class="fnanchor">[49]</a> asked the villagers +of one another.</p> + +<p>The minister certainly was powerful in the pulpit, +but his ways were more than they could understand. +He was for ever hammering at the rocks on the moor +and lugging ugly lumps of useless stone homeward, +containing "fossils" as he called them.</p> + +<p>Now Mr. Mackay was standing looking as though he +were trying to find something that he had lost in the +road. If they had been near enough to Alec and his +father they would have heard words like these:</p> + +<p>"You see, Alec, this is the Zambesi River running +<a name="Page_159" id="Page_159"></a>down from the heart of Africa into the Indian Ocean, +and here running into the Zambesi from the north is a +tributary, the Shiré. Livingstone going up that river +found wild savages who ..."</p> + +<p>So the father was tracing in the dust of the road with +the point of his stick the course of the Zambesi which +Livingstone had just explored for the first time.</p> + +<p>On these walks with his father Alec, with his blue +eyes wide open, used to listen to stories like the Yarn +we have read of the marvellous adventures of Livingstone.<a name="FNanchor_50_50" id="FNanchor_50_50"></a><a href="#Footnote_50_50" class="fnanchor">[50]</a> +Sometimes Mr. Mackay would stop and draw +triangles and circles with his stick. Then Alec would +be learning a problem in Euclid on this strange "blackboard" +of the road. He learned the Euclid—but he +preferred the Zambesi and Livingstone!</p> + +<p>One day Alec was off by himself trudging down the +road with a fixed purpose in his mind, a purpose that +seemed to have nothing in the world to do with either +Africa or Euclid. He marched away from his little +village of Rhynie, where the burn runs around the +foot of the great granite mountain across the strath. +He trudged on for four miles. Then he heard a shrill +whistle. Would he be late after all? He ran swiftly +toward the little railway station. A ribbon of smoke +showed over the cutting, away to the right. Alec entered +the station and ran to one end of the platform as +the train slowed down and the engine stopped just opposite +where he stood.</p> + +<p>He gazed at the driver and his mate on the footplate. +He followed every movement as the driver came round +the engine with his long-nosed oil-can, and opened and +<a name="Page_160" id="Page_160"></a>shut small brass lids and felt the bearings with his +hand to see whether they were hot. The guard waved +his green flag. The whistle of the engine shrieked, and +the train steamed out of the station along the burnside +toward Huntly. Alec gazed down the line till the train +was out of sight and then, turning, left the station and +trudged homeward. When he reached Rhynie he had +walked eight miles to look at a railway engine for two +and a half minutes—and he was happy!</p> + +<p>As he went along the village street he heard a familiar +sound.</p> + +<p>"Clang—a—clang clang!—ssssssss!" It was irresistible. +He stopped, and stepped into the magic cavern +of darkness, gleaming with the forge-fire, where George +Lobban, the smith, having hammered a glowing horseshoe +into shape, gripped it with his pincers and flung it +hissing into the water.</p> + +<p>Having cracked a joke with the laughing smith, Alec +dragged himself away from the smithy, past the green, +and looked in at the stable to curry-comb the pony and +enjoy feeling the little beast's muzzle nosing in his hand +for oats.</p> + +<p>He let himself into the manse and ran up to his +work-room, where he began to print off some pages that +he had set up on his little printing press.</p> + +<p>At supper his mother looked sadly at her boy with +his dancing eyes as he told her about the wonders of +the railway engine. In her heart she wanted him to be +a minister. And she did not see any sign that this boy +would ever become one: this lad of hers who was +always running off from his books to peer into the furnaces +of the gas works, or to tease the village carpenter +<a name="Page_161" id="Page_161"></a>into letting him plane a board, or to sit, with chin in +hands and elbows on knees, watching the saddler cutting +and padding and stitching his leather, or to creep +into the carding-mill—like the Budge and Toddy whose +lives he had read—"to see weels go wound."</p> + +<p>It was a bitter cold night in the Christmas vacation +fourteen years later.<a name="FNanchor_51_51" id="FNanchor_51_51"></a><a href="#Footnote_51_51" class="fnanchor">[51]</a> Alec Mackay, now a young +engineering student, was lost to all sense of time as he +read of the hairbreadth escapes and adventures told by +the African explorer, Stanley, in his book, <i>How I found +Livingstone</i>.</p> + +<p>He read these words of Stanley's:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>"For four months and four days I lived with Livingstone +in the same house, or in the same boat, or in the same tent, +and I never found a fault in him.... Each day's life with +him added to my admiration for him. His gentleness never +forsakes him: his hopefulness never deserts him. His is the +Spartan heroism, the inflexibility of the Roman, the enduring +resolution of the Anglo-Saxon. The man has conquered me."</p></div> + +<p>Alexander Mackay put down Stanley's book and +gazed into the fire. Since the days when he had +trudged as a boy down to the station to see the railway +engine he had been a schoolboy in the Grammar School +at Aberdeen, and a student in Edinburgh, and while +there had worked in the great shipbuilding yards at +Leith amid the clang and roar of the rivetters and the +engine shop. He was now studying in Berlin, drawing +the designs of great engines far more wonderful than +the railway engine he had almost worshipped as a boy.</p> + +<p>On the desk at Mackay's side lay his diary in which +he wrote his thoughts. In that diary were the words +that he himself had written:</p> +<p><a name="Page_162" id="Page_162"></a></p> +<div class="blockquot"><p>"This day last year<a name="FNanchor_52_52" id="FNanchor_52_52"></a><a href="#Footnote_52_52" class="fnanchor">[52]</a> Livingstone died—a Scotsman and a +Christian—loving God and his neighbour, in the heart of +Africa. 'Go thou and do likewise.'"</p></div> + +<p>Mackay wondered. Could it ever be that he would +go into the heart of Africa like Livingstone? it +seemed impossible. What was the good of an engineer +among the lakes and forests of Central Africa?</p> + +<p>On the table by the side of Stanley's <i>How I found +Livingstone</i> lay a newspaper, the Edinburgh <i>Daily Review</i>. +Mackay glanced at it; then he snatched it up and +read eagerly a letter which appeared there. It was a +new call to Central Africa—the call, through Stanley, +from King M'tesa of Uganda, that home of massacre +and torture. These are some of the words that Stanley +wrote:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>"King M'tesa of Uganda has been asking me about the +white man's God.... Oh that some practical missionary +would come here. M'tesa would give him anything that he +desired—houses, land, cattle, ivory. It is the practical Christian +who can ... cure their diseases, build dwellings, teach +farming and turn his hand to anything like a sailor—this is +the man who is wanted. Such a one, if he can be found, +would become the saviour of Africa."</p></div> + +<p>Stanley called for "a practical man who could turn +his hand to anything—<i>if he can be found</i>."</p> + +<p>The words burned their way into Mackay's very soul.</p> + +<p>"If he can be found." Why here, here in this very +room he sits—the boy who has worked in the village at +the carpenter's bench and the saddler's table, in the +smithy and the mill, when his mother wished him to be +at his books; the lad who has watched the ships building +in the docks of Aberdeen, and has himself with +<a name="Page_163" id="Page_163"></a>hammer and file and lathe built and made machines in +the engineering works—he is here—the "man who can +turn his hand to anything." And he had, we remember, +already written in his diary:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>"Livingstone died—a Scotsman and a Christian—loving +God and his neighbour, in the heart of Africa. 'Go thou +and do likewise.'"</p></div> + +<p>Mackay did not hesitate. Then and there he took +pen and ink and paper and wrote to London to the +Church Missionary Society which was offering, in the +daily paper that lay before him, to send men out to +King M'tesa. The words that Mackay wrote were +these:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>"My heart burns for the deliverance of Africa, and if you +can send me to any one of those regions which Livingstone +and Stanley have found to be groaning under the curse of the +slave-hunter I shall be very glad."</p></div> + +<p>Within four months Mackay, with some other young +missionaries who had volunteered for the same great +work, was standing on the deck of the S.S. <i>Peshawur</i> as +she steamed out from Southampton for Zanzibar.</p> + +<p>He was in the footsteps of Livingstone—"a Scotsman +and a Christian"—making for the heart of Africa +and "ready to turn his hand to anything" for the sake +of Him who as</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"... the Carpenter of Nazareth<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Made common things for God."<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3><p><a name="Page_164" id="Page_164"></a></p> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_49_49" id="Footnote_49_49"></a><a href="#FNanchor_49_49"><span class="label">[49]</span></a> "What is the minister gazing at, with his son Alec, in the dust of +the road?"</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_50_50" id="Footnote_50_50"></a><a href="#FNanchor_50_50"><span class="label">[50]</span></a> See <a href="#CHAPTER_XV">Chapter XV</a>.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_51_51" id="Footnote_51_51"></a><a href="#FNanchor_51_51"><span class="label">[51]</span></a> December 12, 1875.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_52_52" id="Footnote_52_52"></a><a href="#FNanchor_52_52"><span class="label">[52]</span></a> May 1, 1873.</p></div> +</div> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h3><a name="CHAPTER_XIX" id="CHAPTER_XIX"></a>CHAPTER XIX</h3> + +<h4>THE ROADMAKER</h4> + +<p class='center'><i>Alexander Mackay</i></p> + +<p class='center'>(Date, 1878)</p> + + +<p>After many months of delay at Zanzibar, Mackay +with his companions and bearers started on his tramp +of hundreds of miles along narrow footpaths, often +through swamps, delayed by fierce greedy chiefs who +demanded many cloths before they would let the travellers +pass. One of the little band of missionaries had +already died of fever. When hundreds of miles from +the coast, Mackay was stricken with fever and nearly +died. His companions sent him back to the coast again +to recover, and they themselves went on and put together +the <i>Daisy</i>, the boat which the bearers had carried +in sections on their heads, on the shore of Victoria +Nyanza. So Mackay, racked with fever, was carried +back by his Africans over the weary miles through +swamp and forest to the coast. At last he was well +again, and with infinite labour he cut a great wagon +road for 230 miles to Mpapwa. With pick and shovel, +axe and saw, they cleared the road of trees for a hundred +days.</p> + +<p>Mackay wrote home as he sat at night tired by the +side of his half-made road, "This will certainly yet be +a highway for the King Himself; and all that pass this +way will come to know His Name."</p> + +<p><a name="Page_165" id="Page_165"></a>At length, after triumphing by sheer skill and will +over a thousand difficulties, Mackay reached the southern +shore of Victoria Nyanza at Kagei, to find that +his surviving companions had gone on to Uganda in an +Arab sailing-dhow, leaving on the shore the <i>Daisy</i>, +which had been too small to carry them.</p> + +<p>On the beach by the side of that great inland sea, +Victoria Nyanza, in the heart of Africa, Mackay found +the now broken and leaking <i>Daisy</i>. Her cedar planks +were twisted and had warped in the blazing sun till +every seam gaped. A hippopotamus had crunched her +bow between his terrible jaws. Many of her timbers +had crumbled before the still greater foe of the African +boat-builder—the white ant.</p> + +<p>Now, under her shadow lay the man "who could +turn his hand to anything," on his back with hammer +and chisel in hand. He was rivetting a plate of copper +on the hull of the <i>Daisy</i>. Already he had nailed sheets +of zinc and lead on stern and bow, and had driven cotton +wool picked from the bushes by the lake into the +seams to caulk some of the leaks. Around the boat +stood crowds of Africans, their dark faces full of astonishment +at the white man mending his big canoe.</p> + +<p>"Why should a man toil so terribly hard?" they wondered.</p> + +<p>The tribesmen of the lake had only canoes hollowed +out from a tree-trunk, or made of some planks sewn +together with fibres from the banana tree.</p> + +<p>At last Mackay had his boat ready to sail up the +Victoria Nyanza. The whole of the length of that +great sea, itself larger than his own native Scotland, +still separated Mackay from the land of Uganda for +<a name="Page_166" id="Page_166"></a>which he had left Britain over fifteen months earlier.</p> + +<p>All through his disappointments and difficulties +Mackay fought on. With him, as with Livingstone, +nothing had power to break his spirit or quench his +burning determination to carry on his God-given plan +to serve Africa.</p> + +<p>Every use of saw and hammer and chisel, every</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"trick of the tool's true trade,"<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>all the training in the shipbuilding yards and engineering +shops at Edinburgh and in Germany helped Mackay +to invent some new, daring and ingenious way out of +every fresh difficulty.</p> + + +<p><i>The Wreck of the "Daisy"</i></p> + +<p>Now at last the <i>Daisy</i> was on the water again; and +Mackay and his bearers went aboard<a name="FNanchor_53_53" id="FNanchor_53_53"></a><a href="#Footnote_53_53" class="fnanchor">[53]</a> and hoisting +sail from Kagei ran northward. Before they had gone +far black storm clouds swept across the sky. Night +fell. Lightning blazed unceasingly and flung up into +silhouette the wild outlines of the mountains to the east. +The roar of the thunder echoed above the wail of the +wind and the threshing of the waves.</p> + +<p>All through the dark, Mackay and those of his men +who could handle an oar rowed unceasingly. Again +and again he threw out his twenty-fathom line, but in +vain. He made out a dim line of precipitous cliffs, yet +the water seemed fathomless—the only map in existence +was a rough one that Stanley had made. At last +the lead touched bottom at fourteen fathoms. In the +<a name="Page_167" id="Page_167"></a>dim light of dawn they rowed and sailed toward a +shady beach before the cliffs, and anchored in three and +a half fathoms of water.</p> + +<p>The storm passed; but the waves from the open sea +came roaring in and broke over the <i>Daisy</i>. The bowsprit +dipped under the anchor chain, and the whole bulwark +on the weatherside was carried away. The next +sea swept into the open and now sinking boat. By +frantic efforts they heaved up the anchor and the next +wave swung the <i>Daisy</i> with a crash onto the beach, +where the waves pounded her to a complete wreck, +wrenching the planks from the keel. But Mackay and +his men managed to rescue her cargo before she went to +pieces.</p> + +<p>They were wrecked on a shore where Stanley, the +great explorer, had years before had a hairbreadth +escape from massacre at the hands of the wild savages. +But Stanley, living up to the practice he had learned +from Livingstone, had turned enemies into friends, and +now the natives made no attack on the shipwrecked +Mackay.</p> + +<p>For eight weeks Mackay laboured there, hard on the +edge of the lake, living on the beach in a tent made of +spars and sails. With hammer and chisel and saw he +worked unsparingly at his task. He cut the middle +eight feet from the boat, and bringing her stern and +stem together patched the broken ends with wood from +the middle part. After two months' work the now +dumpier <i>Daisy</i> took the water again, and carried Mackay +and his men safely up the long shores of Victoria +Nyanza to the goal of all his travelling, the capital of +M'tesa, King of Uganda.</p> + +<p><a name="Page_168" id="Page_168"></a>The rolling tattoo of goat-skin drums filled the royal +reception-hall of King M'tesa, as the great tyrant entered +with his chiefs. M'tesa, his dark, cruel heavy +face in vivid contrast with his spotless white robe, sat +heavily down on his stool of State, while brazen trumpets +sent to him from England blared as Mackay +entered. The chiefs squatted on low stools and on the +rush-strewn mud-floor before the King. At his side +stood his Prime Minister, the Katikiro, a smaller man +than the King, but swifter and more far-sighted. The +Katikiro was dressed in a snowy-white Arab gown covered +by a black mantle trimmed with gold. In his hard, +guilty face treacherous cunning and masterful cruelty +were blended.</p> + +<p>M'tesa was gracious to Mackay, and gave him land +on which to build his home. More important to Mackay +than even his hut was his workshop, where he +quickly fixed his forge and anvil, vise and lathe, and +grindstone, for he was now in the place where he could +practise his skill. It was for this that he had left home +and friends, and pressed on in spite of fever and shipwreck +to serve Africa and lead her to the worship of +Jesus Christ by working and teaching as our Lord did +when on earth.</p> + +<p>One day the wide thatched roof of that workshop +shaded from the flaming rays of the sun a crowded +circle of the chiefs of Uganda with their slaves, who +loved to come to "hear the bellows roar." They were +gazing at Mackay, whose strong, bare right arm was +swinging his hammer</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"Clang-a-clang-clang."<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p><a name="Page_169" id="Page_169"></a>Then a ruddy glow lit up the dark faces of the watchers +and the bronzed face of the white man who in the +centre of his workshop was blowing up his forge fire. +Gripping in his pincers the iron hoe that was now red-hot, +Mackay hammered it into shape and then plunged +it all hissing into the bath of water that stood by him.</p> + +<p>Hardly had the cloud of steam risen from the bath, +when Mackay once more gripped the hoe, and moving +to his grindstone placed his foot on the pedal and set +the edge of the hoe against the whirling stone. The +sparks flew high. A murmur came from the Uganda +chiefs who stood around.</p> + +<p>"It is witchcraft," they said to one another. "It is +witchcraft by which Mazunga-wa-Kazi makes the hard +iron tenfold harder in the water. It is witchcraft by +which he sends the wheels round and makes our hoes +sharp. Surely he is the great wizard."</p> + +<p>Mackay caught the sound of the new name that they +had given him—Mazunga-wa-Kazi—the White-Man-at-Work. +They called him by this name because to +them it was very strange that any man should work +with his own hands.</p> + +<p>"Women are for work," said the chiefs. "Men go +to talk with the King, and to fight and eat."</p> + +<p>Mackay paused in his work and turned on them.</p> + +<p>"No," he said, "you are wrong. God made man +with one stomach and with two hands in order that he +may work twice as much as he eats." And Mackay +held out before them his own hands blackened with the +work of the smithy, rough with the handling of hammer +and saw, the file and lathe. "But you," and he +turned on them with a laugh and pointed to their sleek +<a name="Page_170" id="Page_170"></a>bodies as they shone in the glow of the forge fire, "you +are all stomach and no hands."</p> + +<p>They grinned sheepishly at one another under this +attack, and, as Mackay let down the fire and put away +his tools, they strolled off to the hill on which the +King's beehive-shaped thatched palace was built.</p> + +<p>Mackay climbed up the hill on the side of which his +workshop stood. From the ridge he gazed over the +low-lying marsh from which the women were bearing +on their heads the water-pots. He knew that the men +and women of the land were suffering from fearful illnesses. +He now realised that the fevers came from the +poisonous waters of the marsh. He made up his mind +how he could help them with his skill. They must have +pure water; yet they knew nothing of wells.</p> + +<p>Mackay at once searched the hill-side with his spade +and found a bed of clay emerging from the side of the +hill. He climbed sixteen feet higher up the hill and, +bringing the men who could help him together, began +digging. He knew that he would reach spring water at +the level of the clay, for the rains that had filtered +through the earth would stop there.</p> + +<p>The Baganda<a name="FNanchor_54_54" id="FNanchor_54_54"></a><a href="#Footnote_54_54" class="fnanchor">[54]</a> thought that he was mad. "Whoever," +they asked one another, "heard of digging in +the top of a hill for water?"</p> + +<p>"When the hole is so deep," said Mackay, measuring +out sixteen feet, "water will come, pure and clean, and +you will not need to carry it up the hill from the marsh."</p> + +<p>They dug and dug till the hole was too deep to hurl +the earth up over the edge. Then Mackay made a pulley, +which seemed a magic thing to them, for they could +<a name="Page_171" id="Page_171"></a>not yet understand the working of wheels; and with +rope and bucket the earth was pulled up. Exactly at +the depth of sixteen feet the water welled in. The Baganda +clapped their hands and danced with delight.</p> + +<p>"Mackay is the great wizard. He is the mighty +spirit," they cried. "The King must come to see this."</p> + +<p>King M'tesa himself wondered at the story of the +making of the well and the finding of the water. He +gave orders that he was to be carried to view this great +wonder. His eyes rolled with astonishment as he saw +it and heard of the wonders that were wrought by the +work of men.</p> + +<p>Yet M'tesa and his men still wondered why any man +should work hard. Mackay tried to explain this to the +King when he sat in his reception-hall. Work, Mackay +told M'tesa, is the noblest thing a man can do, and he +told him how Jesus Christ, the Son of the Great Father-Spirit +who made all things, did not Himself feel that +work was a thing too mean for Him. For our Lord, +when He lived on earth at Nazareth, worked with His +own hands at the carpenter's bench, and made all labour +forever noble.</p> + +<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3><p><a name="Page_172" id="Page_172"></a></p> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_53_53" id="Footnote_53_53"></a><a href="#FNanchor_53_53"><span class="label">[53]</span></a> August 23, 1878.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_54_54" id="Footnote_54_54"></a><a href="#FNanchor_54_54"><span class="label">[54]</span></a> The people of Uganda.</p></div> +</div> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h3><a name="CHAPTER_XX" id="CHAPTER_XX"></a>CHAPTER XX</h3> + +<h4>FIGHTING THE SLAVE TRADE</h4> + +<p class='center'><i>Alexander Mackay</i></p> + +<p class='center'>(Date, 1878)</p> + + +<p>In the court of King M'tesa, Mackay always saw +many boys who used to drive away the flies from the +King's face with fans, carry stools for the chiefs and +visitors to squat upon, run messages and make themselves +generally useful. Most of these boys were the +sons of chiefs. When they were not occupied with +some errand, they would lounge about playing games +with one another in the open space just by the King's +hut.</p> + +<p>Often when Mackay came to speak with the King, +he had to wait in this place before he could have audience +of M'tesa. He would bring with him large sheets +of paper on which he had printed in his workshop the +alphabet and some sentences. The printing was actually +done with the little hand-press that Mackay had +used in his attic when he was a boy in his old home in +Rhynie. He had taken it with him all the way to +Uganda, and now was setting up letters and sentences +in a language which had never been printed before.</p> + +<p>The Baganda boys who had gathered round the +White-Man-of-Work with wondering eyes, as he with +his "magic" printed the sheets of paper, now crowded +<a name="Page_173" id="Page_173"></a>about him as he unrolled one of these white sheets with +the curious black smudges on them. Mackay made the +noise that we call A and then B, and pointed to these +curious-shaped objects which we call the letters of the +alphabet. Then he got them to make the noise and +point to the letter that represented that sound. At last +the keenest of the boys really could repeat the alphabet +right through and begin to read whole words from another +sheet—Baganda words—so that at length they +could read whole sentences.</p> + +<p>Two of these pioneer boys became very good scholars. +One named Mukasa became a Christian and was +baptised with the name Samweli (Samuel); another +called Kakumba was baptised Yusufu (Joseph). A +third boy had been captured from a tribe in the north, +and his skin was of a much lighter brown than that of +the Baganda boys. This light-skinned captured slave +was named Lugalama.</p> + +<p>Each of these boys felt that it was a very proud day +when at last he could actually read a whole sheet of +printing from beginning to end in his own language—from +"Our Father" down to "the Kingdom, the power +and the glory, Amen."</p> + +<p>One morning these page-boys leapt to their feet as +they heard the familiar rattle of the drums that heralded +the coming of King M'tesa. They bowed as he +entered the hall and sat heavily on his stool, while his +chiefs ranged themselves about him.</p> + +<p>On a stool near the King sat Mackay, the White-Man-of-Work. +His bronzed face was set in grim determination, +for he knew that on that morning he had +a difficult battle to fight.</p> + +<p><a name="Page_174" id="Page_174"></a>Another loud battering of drum-heads filled the air. +The entrance to the hut was darkened by a tall, swarthy +Arab in long, flowing robes, followed by negro-bearers, +who cast on the ground bales of cloth and guns. The +Arab wore on his head a red fez, round which a coloured +turban scarf was wound. He was a slave-trader +from the coast, who had come from the East to M'tesa +in Uganda to buy men and women and children to +carry them away into slavery.</p> + +<p>King M'tesa was himself not only a slave-trader but +a slave-raider. He sent his fierce gangs of warriors +out to raid a tribe away in the hills to the north. They +would dash into a village, slay the men, and drag the +boys and girls and women back to M'tesa as slaves. +The bronze-skinned boy, Lugalama, was a young slave +who had been captured on one of these bloodthirsty +raids. And M'tesa, who often sent out his executioners +to slay his own people by the hundred to please the +dreaded and horrible god of small-pox, would also sell +his people by the hundred to get guns for his soldiers.</p> + +<p>The Arab slave-trader bowed to the earth before +King M'tesa, who signalled to him to speak.</p> + +<p>"I have come," said the Arab, pointing to the guns +on the floor, "to bring you these things in exchange for +some men and women and children. See, I offer you +guns and percussion caps and cloth." And he spread +out lengths of the red cloth, and held out one of the +guns with its gleaming barrel.</p> + +<p>King M'tesa's eyes lighted up with desire as he saw +the muskets and the ammunition. These, he thought, +are the things that will make me powerful against my +enemies.</p> + +<p><a name="Page_175" id="Page_175"></a>"I will give you," the Arab slave-trader went on, +"one of these lengths of red cloth in exchange for one +man to be sold to me as a slave; one of these guns for +two men; and one hundred of these percussion caps for +a woman as a slave."</p> + +<p>Mackay looked into the cruel face of M'tesa, and he +could see how the ambitious King longed for the guns. +Should he risk the favour of the King by fighting the +battle of a few slaves? Yet Mackay remembered as +he sat there, how Livingstone's great fight against the +slave-traders had made him, as a student, vow that he +too would go out and fight slavery in Africa. The +memory nerved him for the fight he was now to make.</p> + +<p>Mackay turned to M'tesa and said words like these:<a name="FNanchor_55_55" id="FNanchor_55_55"></a><a href="#Footnote_55_55" class="fnanchor">[55]</a></p> + +<p>"O King M'tesa, you are set as father over all your +multitude of people. They are your children. It is +they who make you a great King.</p> + +<p>"Remember, O King, that the Sultan of Zanzibar +himself has signed a decree that no slaves shall be taken +in all these lands and sold to other lands down beyond +the coast, whither this Arab would lead your children. +Therefore if you sell slaves you break his law.</p> + +<p>"Will you, then, sell your own people that they may +be taken out of their homeland into a strange country? +They will be chained to one another, beaten with whips, +scourged and kicked, and many will be left at the wayside +to die; till the peoples of the coast shall laugh at +Uganda and say, 'That is how King M'tesa lets strangers +treat his children!'"</p> + +<p>We can imagine how the Arab turned and scowled +<a name="Page_176" id="Page_176"></a>fiercely at Mackay. His heart raged, and he would +have given anything to plunge the dagger hidden in his +robe into Mackay's heart. Who was this white man +who dared to try to stop his trade? But Mackay went +on.</p> + +<p>"See," he said, pointing to the boys and the chiefs, +"your children are wonderfully made. Their bones, +which are linked together, are clothed with flesh; and +from the heart in their breasts the blood that gives men +life flows to and fro through their bodies, while the +breath goes in and out of their lungs and makes them +live. God the Father and Maker of all men alone can +create such wonders. No men who ever lived could, if +they worked all through their lives, make one thing so +marvellous as one of these boys. Will you, then, sell +one of these miracles, one of your children, for a bit of +red rag which any man can make in a day?"</p> + +<p>All eyes turned to King M'tesa to learn what he +would say.</p> + +<p>The King with a wave of his hand dismissed the +scowling Arab, while he took counsel with his chiefs, +and came to this decision:</p> + +<p>"My people shall no more be made slaves."</p> + +<p>A decree was written out and King M'tesa put his +hand to it. The crestfallen Arab and his men gathered +up their guns and cloths, marched down the hill to +buy ivory instead of slaves for their bales of red cloth, +and went out of the dominions of King M'tesa, across +the Great Lake homeward.</p> + +<p>Mackay had won the first battle against slavery. His +heart was very glad. Yet he knew that, although he +<a name="Page_177" id="Page_177"></a>had scored a triumph in this fight with the slave-dealer, +he had not won in his great campaign. The King was +generally kind to Mackay, for he was proud to have so +clever a white man in his country. But he could not +make up his mind to become a Christian. M'tesa's +heart had not really changed. His slave-raiding of +other tribes might still go on. The horrible butcherings +of his people to turn away the dreaded anger of +the gods would continue. Mackay felt he must press +on with his work. He was slowly opening a road +through the jungle of cruelty and the marshes of dread +of the gods that made the life of the Baganda people +dark and dreadful.</p> + +<p>All Uganda waited breathless one day as though the +end of the world had come.</p> + +<p>"King M'tesa is dead!" the cry went out through all +the land.</p> + +<p>The people waited in dread and on tiptoe of eagerness +till the new king was selected by the chiefs from +the sons of the dead ruler.</p> + +<p>At last a great cheer went up from the Palace. +"M'wanga has eaten Uganda!" they shouted.</p> + +<p>By this the people meant that M'wanga, a young son +of M'tesa—only eighteen years old—had been made +King. He was, however, a boy with no power—the +mere feeble tool of the Katikiro (the Prime Minister) +and of Mujasi, the Captain of the King's own bodyguard +of soldiers. Both of these great men of the kingdom +fiercely hated Mackay, for they were jealous of +his power over the old King. So they whispered into +the young M'wanga's ears stories like this: "You know +that men say that Uganda will be eaten up by an enemy +<a name="Page_178" id="Page_178"></a>from the lands of the rising sun. Mackay and the +other white men are making ready to bring thousands +of white soldiers into your land to 'eat it up' and to kill +you."</p> + +<p>So M'wanga began to refuse to speak to Mackay. +Then, because the King was afraid to attack him, he +began to lay plots against the boys.</p> + +<p>One morning Mackay started out from his house +with five or six boys and the crew of his boat to march +down to the lake. Among the boys were young Lugalama—the +fair-haired slave-boy, now a freed-slave and +a servant to Mackay—and Kakumba, who had (you +remember) been baptised Joseph. The King and the +Katikiro had given Mackay permission to go down to +the lake and sail across it to take letters to a place called +Msalala from which the carriers would bear them down +to the coast.</p> + +<p>Down the hill the party walked, the crew carrying +the baggage and the oars on their heads. Mackay and +his colleague Ashe, who had come out from England +to work with him, walked behind.</p> + +<p>To their surprise there came running down the path +behind them and past them a company of soldiers.</p> + +<p>"Where are you going?" asked Mackay of one of +the soldiers.</p> + +<p>"Mujasi, the Captain of the Bodyguard," he replied, +"has sent us to capture some of the King's wives who +have run away."</p> + +<p>Another and yet another body of soldiers rushed +past them. Mackay became more and more suspicious +that some foul plot was being brewed. He and his +company had walked ten miles, and the lake was but +<a name="Page_179" id="Page_179"></a>two miles away, divided from them by a wood. Suddenly +there leapt out from behind the trees of the wood +hundreds of men headed by Mujasi himself.</p> + +<p>They levelled their guns and spears at Mackay and +his friends and yelled, "Go back! Go back!"</p> + +<p>"We are the King's friends," replied Mackay, "and +we have his leave to travel. How dare you insult us?"</p> + +<p>And they pushed forward. But the soldiers rushed +at them; snatched their walking-sticks from them and +began to jostle them. Mackay and Ashe sat down by +the side of the path. Mujasi came up to them.</p> + +<p>"Where are you walking?" he asked.</p> + +<p>"We are travelling to the port with the permission +of King M'wanga and the Katikiro."</p> + +<p>"You are a liar!" replied Mujasi.</p> + +<p>Mujasi stood back and the soldiers rushed at the +missionaries, dragged them to their feet and held the +muzzles of their guns within a few inches of their +chests. Mackay turned with his boys and marched +back to the capital.</p> + +<p>He and Ashe were allowed to go back to their own +home on the side of the hill, but the five boys were +marched to the King's headquarters and imprisoned. +The Katikiro, when Mackay went to him, refused to +listen at first. Then he declared that Mackay was +always taking boys out of the country, and returning +with armies of white men and hiding them with the intention +of conquering Uganda.</p> + +<p>The Katikiro waved them aside and the angry waiting +mob rushed on the missionaries yelling, "Mine shall +be his coat!" "Mine his trousers!" "No, mine!" +shouted another, as the men scuffled with one another.</p> + +<p><a name="Page_180" id="Page_180"></a>Mackay and Ashe at last got back to their home and +knelt in prayer. Later on the same evening, they decided +to attempt to win back the King and the Prime +Minister and Mujasi by gifts, so that their imprisoned +boys would be freed from danger.</p> + +<p>Mackay spoke to his other boys, telling them to go +and fly for their lives or they would be killed.</p> + +<p>In the morning Mackay heard that three of the boys +who had been captured on the previous day were not +only bound as prisoners, but that Mujasi was threatening +to burn them to death. The boys were named Seruwanga, +Kakumba, and Lugalama. The eldest was +fifteen, the youngest twelve.</p> + +<p>The boys were led out with a mob of howling men +and boys around them. Mujasi shouted to them: "Oh, +you know Isa Masiya (Jesus Christ). You believe +you will rise from the dead. I shall burn you, and you +will see if this is so."</p> + +<p>A hideous roar of laughter rose from the mob. The +boys were led down the hill towards the edge of a +marsh. Behind them was a plantation of banana trees. +Some men who had carried bundles of firewood on +their heads threw the wood into a heap; others laid +hold of each of the boys and cut off their arms with +hideous curved knives so that they should not struggle +in the fire.</p> + +<p>Seruwanga, the bravest, refused to utter a cry as he +was cut to pieces, but Kakumba shouted to Mujasi, who +was a Mohammedan, "You believe in Allah the Merciful. +Be merciful!" But Mujasi had no mercy.</p> + +<p>We are told that the men who were watching held +<a name="Page_181" id="Page_181"></a>their breath with awed amazement as they heard a +boy's voice out of the flame and smoke singing,</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i2">"Daily, daily sing to Jesus,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Sing, my soul, His praises due."<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>As the executioners came towards the youngest and +feeblest, Lugalama, he cried, "Oh, do not cut off my +arms. I will not struggle, I will not fight—only throw +me into the fire."</p> + +<p>But they did their ghastly work, and threw the mutilated +boy on a wooden framework above the slow fire +where his cries went up, till at last there was silence.</p> + +<p>One other Christian stood by named Musali. Mujasi, +with eyes bloodshot and inflamed with cruelty, +came towards him and cried:</p> + +<p>"Ah, you are here. I will burn you too and your +household. You are a follower of Isa (Jesus)."</p> + +<p>"Yes, I am," replied Musali, "and I am not ashamed +of it."</p> + +<p>It was a marvel of courage to say in the face of the +executioner's fire and knife what Peter dared not say +when the servant-maid in Jerusalem laughed at him. +Perhaps the heroism of Musali awed even the cruel-hearted +Mujasi. In any case he left Musali alone.</p> + +<p>For a little time M'wanga ceased to persecute the +Christians. But the wily Arabs whispered in his ear +that the white men were still trying to "eat up" his +country. M'wanga was filled with mingled anger and +fear. Then his fury burst all bounds when Mujasi +said to him: "There is a great white man coming from +the rising sun. Behind him will come thousands of +white soldiers."</p> + +<p><a name="Page_182" id="Page_182"></a>"Send at once and kill him," cried the demented +M'wanga.</p> + +<p>A boy named Balikudembe, a Christian, heard the +order and he could not contain himself, but broke out, +"Oh, King M'wanga, why are you going to kill a +white man? Your father did not do so."</p> + +<p>But the soldiers went out, travelled east along the +paths till they met the great Bishop Hannington being +carried in a litter, stricken with fever. They took him +prisoner, and, after some days, slew him as he stood +defenceless before them. Hannington had been sent +out to help Mackay and his fellow-Christians.</p> + +<p>Then the King fell ill. He believed that the boy +Balikudembe, who had warned him not to kill the +Bishop, had bewitched him. So M'wanga's soldiers +went and caught the lad and led him down to a place +where they lit a fire, and placing the boy over it, +burned him slowly to death.</p> + +<p>All through this time Mackay alone had not been +really seriously threatened, for his work and what he +was made the King and the Katikiro and even Mujasi +afraid to do him to death.</p> + +<p>Then there came a tremendous thunderstorm. A +flash of lightning smote the King's house and it flamed +up and burned to ashes. Then King M'wanga seemed +to go mad. He threatened to slay Mackay himself.</p> + +<p>"Take, seize, burn the Christians," he cried. And +his executioners and their minions rushed out, captured +forty-six men and boys, slashed their arms from their +bodies with their cruel curved knives so that they could +not struggle, and then placed them over the ghastly +flames which slowly wrung the lives from their tor<a name="Page_183" id="Page_183"></a>tured +bodies. Yet the numbers of the Christians +seemed to grow with persecution.</p> + +<p>The King himself beat one boy, Apolo Kagwa, with +a stick and smote him on the head, then knocked him +down, kicked and stamped upon him. Then the King +burned all his books, crying, "Never read again."</p> + +<p>The other men and boys who had become Christians +were now scattered over the land in fear of their lives. +Mackay, however, come what may, determined to hold +on. He set his little printing press to work and printed +off a letter which he sent to the scattered Christians. +In Mackay's letter was written these words, "In days +of old Christians were hated, were hunted, were driven +out and were persecuted for Jesus' sake, and thus it is +to-day. Our beloved brothers, do not deny our Lord +Jesus!"</p> + +<p>At last M'wanga's mad cruelties grew so frightful +that all his people rose in rebellion and drove him from +the throne, so that he had to wander an outcast by the +lake-side. Mackay at that time was working by the +lake, and he offered to shelter the deposed King who +had only a short time before threatened his life.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>Two years passed; and Mackay, on the lake-side, +was building a new boat in which he hoped to sail to +other villages to teach the people. Then a fever struck +him. He lay lingering for some days. Then he died—aged +only forty-one.</p> + +<p>If Mackay, instead of becoming a missionary, had +entered the engineering profession he might have become +a great engineer. When he was a missionary in +Africa, the British East Africa Company offered him +<a name="Page_184" id="Page_184"></a>a good position. He refused it. General Gordon offered +him a high position in his army in Egypt. He +refused it.</p> + +<p>He held on when his friends and the Church Missionary +Society called him home. This is what he said +to them, "What is this you write—'Come home'? +Surely now, in our terrible dearth of workers, it is not +the time for anyone to desert his post. Send us only +our first twenty men, and I may be tempted to come to +help you to find the second twenty."</p> + +<p>He died when quite young; homeless, after a life in +constant danger from fever and from a half-mad tyrant +king—his Christian disciples having been burned.</p> + +<p>Was it worth while?</p> + +<p>To-day the Prime Minister of Uganda is Apolo +Kagwa, who as a boy was kicked and beaten and +stamped upon by King M'wanga for being a Christian; +and the King of Uganda, Daudi, M'wanga's son, +is a Christian. At the capital there stands a fine cathedral +in which brown Baganda clergy lead the prayers +of the Christian people. On the place where the boys +were burned to death there stands a Cross, put there by +70,000 Baganda Christians in memory of the young +martyrs.</p> + +<p>Was their martyrdom worth while?</p> + +<p>To-day all the slave raiding has ceased for ever; +innocent people are not slaughtered to appease the gods; +the burning of boys alive has ceased.</p> + +<p>Mackay began the work. He made the first rough +road and as he made it he wrote: "This will certainly +yet be a highway for the King Himself; and all that +pass this way will come to know His name."</p> + +<p><a name="Page_185" id="Page_185"></a>"And a highway shall be there and a way; and it +shall be a way of holiness."</p> + +<p>But the Way is not finished. And the last words +that Mackay wrote were: "Here is a sphere for your +energies. Bring with you your highest education and +your greatest talents, and you will find scope for the +exercise of them all."</p> + +<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3><p><a name="Page_186" id="Page_186"></a></p> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_55_55" id="Footnote_55_55"></a><a href="#FNanchor_55_55"><span class="label">[55]</span></a> There is no record of the precise words, but Mackay gives the argument +in a letter home.</p></div> +</div> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h3><a name="CHAPTER_XXI" id="CHAPTER_XXI"></a>CHAPTER XXI</h3> + +<h4>THE BLACK APOSTLE OF THE LONELY LAKE</h4> + +<p class='center'><i>Shomolekae</i></p> + + +<p>In the garden in Africa where, you remember, David +Livingstone plighted troth with Mary Moffat, as they +stood under an almond tree, there lived years ago a +chocolate-skinned, curly-haired boy. His name was +Shomolekae.<a name="FNanchor_56_56" id="FNanchor_56_56"></a><a href="#Footnote_56_56" class="fnanchor">[56]</a></p> + +<p>His work was to go among the fruit trees, when the +peaches and apricots were growing and to shout and +make a noise to scare away the birds. If he had not +done this they would have eaten up all the fruit. This +boy was born in Africa over seventy-five years ago, +when Victoria was a young queen.</p> + +<p>In the same garden was a grown-up gardener, also +an African, with a dark face and crisp, curly hair. The +grown-up gardener one day stole some of the fruit off +the trees, and he went to the little boy, Shomolekae, +and offered him some apricots.</p> + +<p>Now, Shomolekae had learned to love the missionary, +Mr. Mackenzie, who had come to live in the house at +Kuruman. He knew that it was very wrong of the +gardener to steal the fruit and throw the blame on the +birds. So he said that he would not touch the fruit.<a name="Page_187" id="Page_187"></a> +He went to an old black friend of his named Paul and +said to him:</p> + +<p>"The gardener has stolen the apples and plums and +has asked me to eat them. He has robbed Mr. Mackenzie. +I do not know what to do."</p> + +<p>And old Paul went and told John Mackenzie, who +took notice of the boy Shomolekae and learned to trust +him.</p> + +<p>Many months passed by; and two years later John +Mackenzie was going to a place further north in Africa +than Kuruman. The name of this town was Shoshong, +where Mackenzie would live and teach the people about +Jesus Christ. So he went to the father of Shomolekae, +whose name was Sebolai.</p> + +<p>"Sebolai," said John Mackenzie, "I want to take +your son, Shomolekae, with me to Shoshong."</p> + +<p>Sebolai replied: "I am willing that my son should +come to live with you, but one thing I desire. It is +that he should be taught his reading and to know the +stories in the Bible and such things."</p> + +<p>To this John Mackenzie quickly agreed, for he too +desired that the boy should read.</p> + +<p>So the sixteen oxen were yoked to the big wagon, +and amid much shouting and cracking of whips and +lowing of oxen and creaking of wagon-joints, John +Mackenzie, Shomolekae, and the others, started from +Kuruman northward to Shoshong.</p> + +<p>Now, at Shoshong the chief was Sekhome, who, you +remember, in our last story, was father to Khama. So +when they were at Shoshong, Shomolekae, the young +man who was cook, and Khama, the young man who +was the son of the chief, worshipped in the same little +<a name="Page_188" id="Page_188"></a>church together. It was not such a church as you go +to in our country—but just a little place made of mud +bricks that had been dried in the sun. There were +holes instead of windows, and there was no door in the +open doorway; and on the top of the little building was +a roof of rough, reedy grass.</p> + +<p>These were the days that you heard of in the last +story, when Khama, seeing his tribe attacked by the +fierce Lobengula, rode out on horseback at the head of +his regiment of cavalry and fought them and beat +them, and drove away Lobengula with a bullet in his +neck.</p> + +<p>For two years Shomolekae, learning to read better +every day, and serving John Mackenzie faithfully in +his house, lived at Shoshong.</p> + +<p>Sometimes Shomolekae took long journeys with +wagon and oxen, and at the end of two years he went +with Mackenzie a great way in order to buy windows, +doors, hinges, nails, corrugated iron, and timber with +which to build a better church at Shoshong.</p> + +<p>When Shomolekae came back again with the wagons +loaded up there was great excitement in the tribe. +Hammers and saws, screw-drivers and chisels were +busy day after day, and the missionary and his helpers +laid the bricks one upon another until there rose up a +strong church with windows and a door—a place in +which the people went to worship God the Father of +our Lord Jesus Christ.</p> + +<p>Again Shomolekae went away by wagon, and this +time he travelled away by the edge of the desert southward +until at last he reached the garden at Kuruman +where as a boy he used to frighten the birds from the +<a name="Page_189" id="Page_189"></a>fruit trees. He was now a very clever man at driving +wagons and oxen.</p> + +<p>This, as you know, is not so easy as driving a wagon +with two horses is in Britain. For there were as many +as sixteen and even eighteen oxen harnessed two by +two to the long iron chains in front of the wagon.</p> + +<p>There were no roads, only rough tracks, and the +wagon would drag through the deep sand, or bump +over great boulders of rock, or sink into wet places by +the river. But at such times one of the natives always +led the two front oxen through the river with a long +thong that was fastened to their horns.</p> + +<p>So, in order to drive a wagon well, Shomolekae +needed to be able to manage sixteen oxen all at once, +and keep them walking in a straight line. He needed +to know which were the bad-tempered ones and which +were the good, and which pulled best in one part of +the span and which in another; and how to keep them +all pulling together and not lunging at one another +with their horns.</p> + +<p>Shomolekae also had to be so bold and daring that, +if lions came to eat the oxen at night, he could go with +the gun and either frighten them away or actually +shoot them.</p> + +<p>So you see Shomolekae was very clever, and was full +of good courage.</p> + +<p>While he was living at Kuruman a man came to him +one day and said:</p> + +<p>"John Mackenzie is alone at Shoshong, and there is +no one who can drive his wagon well for him."</p> + +<p>The man who told him this was, as it happened, go<a name="Page_190" id="Page_190"></a>ing +by wagon to Shoshong, where John Mackenzie +lived.</p> + +<p>"Let me go with you," said Shomolekae.</p> + +<p>So he got up into the wagon, and away they went +day after day northward on the same journey that +Shomolekae had taken when he was a boy.</p> + +<p>So Shomolekae served Mackenzie for years as +wagon driver at Shoshong.</p> + +<p>At last the time came when Mackenzie himself left +the tribe at Shoshong—left Khama and all his people—and +travelled southward to build at Kuruman a kind of +small school where he could train young black men to +be missionaries to their own people. And Shomolekae +himself went to Kuruman with Mackenzie. He set to +work with his own hands, and he helped to make and +lay bricks, to put in the doors and windows, and to +place the roof on the walls, until at last the little school +was built.</p> + +<p>And when it was actually built Shomolekae himself +went to be a student there, and Mackenzie began to +train him to be a preacher and a teacher to his own +people.</p> + +<p>For three years Shomolekae worked hard in the college, +learning more and more about Jesus Christ, preparing +himself to go among his own people to tell them +about Him.</p> + +<p>At last the time came when he was ready to go; and +he started out, and travelled long, long miles through +sandy places, and then by a river, until at last he +reached a town of little thatched huts called Pitsani, +which means "The Town of the Little Hyena."</p> + +<p>In that town he gathered the men and women and +<a name="Page_191" id="Page_191"></a>the boys and girls together and taught them the things +that he knew.</p> + +<p>While Shomolekae was at Pitsani there came into +that part of Africa a new missionary, whose name was +Mr. Wookey.</p> + +<p>It was decided that Mr. Wookey should go a long, +long journey and settle down by the shores of Lake +Ngami, which, you remember, David Livingstone had +discovered long years before.</p> + +<p>Shomolekae wished to go out with Mr. Wookey into +this country and to help. So he took the wagon and +yoked the oxen to it, loaded it up with food and all the +things needed for cooking as they travelled along, and +drove the oxen dragging the wagon over many hundreds +of miles of country in which leopards barked and +lions roared, until at last they came to the land near +Lake Ngami.</p> + +<p>When they came into this land, and found a place in +which to settle down, clever Shomolekae mixed earth +into mud just as boys and girls do in order to make +mud-pies, but he made the mud into the shape of +bricks, and then placed the bricks of mud out into the +sun to dry.</p> + +<p>The sunshine was very, very hot indeed—so hot +that the bricks became hard and dry and strong. Day +after day Shomolekae worked until he had made a big +heap of bricks. With these he built a little house for +Mr. Wookey to live in. But these sun-dried bricks +soon spoil if they get wet, so he had to build a verandah +to keep the rain from the walls.</p> + +<p>When the house was built and Mr. Wookey was set<a name="Page_192" id="Page_192"></a>tled +in it, they travelled still further up the river to +learn what people were living there.</p> + +<p>After a while it was decided that Shomolekae should +go and live in a small village by the river, and there +again begin his work of telling the men and women +of Jesus Christ, and teaching the boys and girls to +read.</p> + +<p>In his satchel, which was made of odd bits of calico +print of different patterns, Shomolekae had a hymn-book +with music. The hymn-book was written in the +language of the people—the Sechuana language—and +Shomolekae taught them from the book to sing hymns. +The music was the sol-fa notation.</p> + +<p>This is one of the hymns:</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">1. "Yesu oa me oa nthata,<br /></span> +<span class="i1">Leha ke le mo dibin;<br /></span> +<span class="i1">A re yalo mo kwalon,<br /></span> +<span class="i1">A re yalo mo pedun.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i2">E, Yesu oa me,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">E, Yesu oa me,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">E, Yesu oa me,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Oa me, mo loraton.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">2. "Yesu oa me oa nthata,<br /></span> +<span class="i1">O ntehetse molato;<br /></span> +<span class="i1">O mpusitse timelon,<br /></span> +<span class="i1">O ntlhapisa mo pedun.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i2">"E, Yesu oa me," etc.<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>This is what these words mean in English. I expect +you know them very well.</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">1. "Jesus loves me, this I know,<br /></span> +<span class="i1">For the Bible tells me so;<br /></span> +<span class="i1">Little ones to Him belong,<br /></span> +<span class="i1">They are weak, but He is strong.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"><p><a name="Page_193" id="Page_193"></a></p> +<span class="i2">"Yes, Jesus loves me,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Yes, Jesus loves me,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Yes, Jesus loves me—<br /></span> +<span class="i2">The Bible tells me so.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">2. "Jesus loves me, He who died<br /></span> +<span class="i1">Heaven's gate to open wide;<br /></span> +<span class="i1">He will wash away my sin,<br /></span> +<span class="i1">Let His little child come in.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i2">"Yes, Jesus loves me," etc.<br /></span> +</div></div> +<p>But, you see, the missionary had to alter the words +sometimes so as to make the Sechuana lines come right +for the music; and the second verse really means:</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"My Jesus loves me;<br /></span> +<span class="i1">He has paid my debt;<br /></span> +<span class="i1">He has brought me back from where I strayed;<br /></span> +<span class="i1">He has washed my heart.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i2">Yes, my Jesus, Yes, my Jesus.<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Yes, my Jesus. Mine in love."<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>They would learn the words off by heart because +there was only the one hymn-book, and they would sing +them together, Shomolekae's voice leading.</p> + +<p>They learned them so well that sometimes when the +mothers were out hoeing in the fields, or the little boys +were paddling in their canoes and fishing in the marshy +waters, you would hear them singing the hymns that +they learned in Shomolekae's little school hut.</p> + +<p>Then on Sunday they would have Sunday-school, +and when that was over Shomolekae would gather the +chocolate-faced men and women and boys and girls +together—all who would come—and he would teach +them to kneel down and pray to the one God, Who is +our Father, and they would sing the hymns that they +<a name="Page_194" id="Page_194"></a>had learned, and then he would speak to them a simple +little address, telling them of the Lord Jesus.</p> + +<p>But Shomolekae desired always to go further and +further, even though it was dangerous and difficult. So +he got a canoe and launched it in the river by the village +and paddled further and further up the stream, +under the overhanging trees, and sometimes across the +deep pools in which the big and fierce hippopotami and +crocodiles lived.</p> + +<p>He paddled up the River Okanvango, though many +times he was in danger of his life. The river was not +like rivers in our own country, deep and with strong +banks; it was often filled all over with reeds, and as +shallow as a swamp, and poor Shomolekae had to push +his way with difficulty through these reeds. Always +at night the poisonous mosquitoes came buzzing and +humming around him. The evil-tempered hippopotamus +would suddenly come up from the bottom of the +river with his wicked beady eyes, and great cavernous +mouth, with its enormous teeth, yawning at Shomolekae +as though he quite meant to swallow him whole.</p> + +<p>On the banks at night the lions would roar, and then +the hyenas would howl; but Shomolekae's brave heart +held on, and he pushed on up the river to preach and +teach the people in the villages near the river.</p> + +<p>So through many years, with high courage and simple +faith, Shomolekae worked.</p> + +<p>A good many boys and girls in England before they +are ten years old own many more books than Shomolekae +ever had and have read more than he. They also +have better homes than he, for he pushed on from one +mud hut to another along the rivers and lakes, and all +<a name="Page_195" id="Page_195"></a>the possessions that he had in the world could be put +into the bottom of his canoe.</p> + +<p>But our Heavenly Father, Who loves you and me, +went with him every step of the way. When Shomolekae +taught the boys and girls to sing hymns in praise +of Jesus, even in a little mud hut, He was there, just +as He is in the most beautiful church when we worship +Him. Now God has taken Shomolekae across the +last river to be with Himself.</p> + +<p>Shomolekae was a negro with dark skin and curly +hair. We are white children with fair faces and light +hair. But God is his Father as well as ours and loves +us all alike and wishes to gather us together round Him—loving +Him and one another.</p> + +<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3><p><a name="Page_196" id="Page_196"></a></p> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_56_56" id="Footnote_56_56"></a><a href="#FNanchor_56_56"><span class="label">[56]</span></a> Pronounce Shoh-moh-leh-kei.</p></div> +</div> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h3><a name="CHAPTER_XXII" id="CHAPTER_XXII"></a>CHAPTER XXII</h3> + +<h4>THE WOMAN WHO CONQUERED CANNIBALS</h4> + +<p class='center'><i>Mary Slessor</i></p> + +<p class='center'>(Dates, b. 1848, d. 1915)</p> + + +<h4>I. <span class="smcap">The Mill-girl</span></h4> + +<p><i>The Calabar Girls at the Station</i></p> + +<p>As the train from the south slowed down in +Waverley Station, Edinburgh, one day in 1898, +a black face, with eyes wide open with wonder, +appeared at the window. The carriage door opened +and a little African girl was handed down onto the +platform.</p> + +<p>The people on the station stopped to glance at the +strange negro face. But as a second African girl a +little older than the first stepped from the carriage to +the platform, and a third, and then a fourth black girl +appeared, the cabmen and porters stood staring in +amused curiosity.</p> + +<p>Who was that strange woman (they asked one another), +short and slight, with a face like yellow parchment +and with short, straight brown hair, who smiled +as she gathered the little tribe of African girls round +her on the railway platform?</p> + +<p>The telegraph boys and the news-boys gazed at her +in astonishment. But they would have been transfixed +<a name="Page_197" id="Page_197"></a>with amazement if they had known a tenth of the wonder +of the story of that heroic woman who, just as +simply as she stood there on the Waverley platform, +had mastered cannibals, conquered wild drunken chiefs +brandishing loaded muskets, had faced hunger and thirst +under the flaming heat and burning fevers of Africa, +and walked unscathed by night through forests haunted +by ferocious leopards, to triumph over regiments of +frenzied savages drawn up for battle, had rescued from +death hundreds of baby twins thrown out to be eaten by +ants—and had now brought home to Scotland from +West Africa four of these her rescued children.</p> + +<p>Still more would those Scottish boys at Waverley +Station have wondered, as they gazed on the little +woman and her group of black children, if they had +known that the woman who had done these things, +Mary Slessor, had been a Scottish factory girl, who had +toiled at her weaving machine from six in the morning +till six at night amid the whirr of the belts, the flash +of the shuttles, the rattle of the looms, and the roar +of the great machines.</p> + +<p>Born in Aberdeen, December 2, 1848, Mary Slessor +was the daughter of a Scottish shoemaker. Her +mother was a gentle and sweet-faced woman. After her +father's death Mary was the mainstay of the home. +Working in a weaving shed in Dundee (whither the +family moved when Mary was eleven) she educated +herself while at her machine.</p> + +<p><i>The Call to Africa</i></p> + +<p>Like Livingstone, she taught herself with her book +propped up on the machine at which she worked. She +<a name="Page_198" id="Page_198"></a>read his travels and heard the stories of his fight against +slavery for Africa, till he became her hero.</p> + +<p>One day the news flashed round the world: "Livingstone +is dead. His heart is buried in Central +Africa." Mary had thrilled as she read the story of +his heroic and lonely life. Now he had fallen. She +heard in her heart the words that he had spoken:</p> + +<p>"I go to Africa to try to make an open door....; +do you carry out the work which I have begun. I +<span class="smcap">leave it with you</span>."</p> + +<p>As Mary sat, tired with her week's work, in her pew +in the church on Sunday, and thought of Livingstone's +call to Africa, she saw visions of far-off places of which +she heard from the pulpit and read in her magazines—visions +of a steaming river on the West Coast of Africa +where the alligators slid from the mud banks into the +water; visions of the barracoons on the shore in which +the captured negroes were penned as they waited for the +slave-ships; pictures of villages where trembling prisoners +dipped their hands in boiling oil to test their +guilt, and wives were strangled to go with their dead +chief into the spirit-land; visions of the fierce +chiefs who could order a score of men to be beheaded +for a cannibal feast and then sell a hundred more to +be hounded away into the outer darkness of slavery—the +Calabar where the missionaries of her church were +fighting the black darkness of the most savage people +of the world.</p> + +<p>Mary Slessor made up her mind to go out and give +her whole life to Africa. So she offered herself, a +timorous girl who could not cross a field with a cow in +<a name="Page_199" id="Page_199"></a>it, as a missionary for cannibal Calabar, in West +Africa.</p> + +<p>For twelve years she worked at the centre of the mission +in Calabar and then flung herself into pioneer +work among the terrible tribe of Okoyong. No one +had ever been able to influence them. They defied British +administration. For fifteen years she strove there, +and won a power over the ferocious Okoyong savages +such as no one has ever wielded. "I'm a wee, wee +wifie," she said, "no very bookit, but I grip on well +none the less."</p> + +<p>To-day over two thousand square miles of forest +and rivers, the dark savages, as they squat at night in +the forest around their palaver-fires, tell one another +stories of the Great-White-Ma-Who-Lived-Alone, and +the stories they tell are like these.</p> + + +<h4>II. <span class="smcap">The Healing of the Chief</span></h4> + +<p><i>Through the Forest in the Rain</i></p> + +<p>A strange quiet lay over all the village by the river. +For the chief lay ill in his hut. The Calabar people +were waiting on the tip-toe of suspense. For if the +chief died many of them would be slain to go with him +into the spirit-world—his wives and some of his soldiers +and slaves.</p> + +<p>Suddenly a strange African woman, who had come +over from another village, entered the chief's harem. +She spoke to the wives of the chief, saying, "There +lives away through the forest at Ekenge a white Ma +who can cast out by her magic the demons who are +killing your chief. My son's child was dying, but the +<a name="Page_200" id="Page_200"></a>white Ma<a name="FNanchor_57_57" id="FNanchor_57_57"></a><a href="#Footnote_57_57" class="fnanchor">[57]</a> saved her and she is well to-day. Many +other wonders has she done by the power of her juju. +Let your chief send for her and he will not die."</p> + +<p>There was silence and then eager chattering, for the +women knew that their very lives depended on the chief +getting well. If he died, they would be killed.</p> + +<p>They sent in word to the chief about the strange +white Ma.</p> + +<p>"Let her be sent for," he ordered. "Send a bottle +and four rods (value about a shilling) and messengers +to ask her to come."</p> + +<p>All through the day the messengers hurried over +stream and hill, through village after village and along +the forest paths till at last, after eight hours' journey, +they came to the village of Ekenge. Going to the courtyard +of the chief they told him the story of their sick +chief, and their desire that the white Ma who lived in +his village should come and heal him.</p> + +<p>"She will say for herself what she will do," said the +chief.</p> + +<p>So he sent a messenger to Mary Slessor. She soon +came over from her little house to learn what was +needed of her.</p> + +<p>The story of the sick chief was again told.</p> + +<p>"What is the matter with your chief?" asked Mary +Slessor. Blank faces and nodding heads showed that +they knew nothing at all.</p> + +<p>"I must go to him," she declared. She knew that +the way was full of perils, and that she might be killed +by warriors and wild beasts; but she knew too that, if +<a name="Page_201" id="Page_201"></a>she did not go and if the chief died, hundreds of lives +might be sacrificed.</p> + +<p>Chief Edem said, "There are warriors out in the +woods and you will be killed. You must not go."</p> + +<p>Ma Eme, a tall fat African widow of Ekenge village, +who loved Mary Slessor, said, "No, you must not go. +The streams are deep; the rains are come. You could +never get there."</p> + +<p>But Mary Slessor said, "I <i>must</i> go."</p> + +<p>"Then I will send women with you to look after you, +and men to protect you," said Chief Edem.</p> + +<p>Mary Slessor went back to her house to prepare to +start on her long dangerous journey in the morning. +She could not sleep for wondering whether she was +indeed right to risk her life and all her work on the off-chance +of saving this distant sick chief. She knelt +down and asked God to guide her. Then she felt in her +heart that she must go.</p> + +<p>In the morning at dawn a guard of Ekenge women +came to her door.</p> + +<p>"The men will join us outside the village," they said.</p> + +<p>The skies were grey. The rain was falling as they +started. When the village lay behind them the rain +began to pour in sheets. It came down as only an +African rain can, unceasing torrents of pitiless deluge. +Soon Mary Slessor's soaked boots became impossible +to walk in. She took them off and threw them into +the bush; then her stockings went, and she ploughed on +in the mud in her bare feet.</p> + +<p>They had walked for three hours when, as the +weather began to clear, Mary Slessor came out into a +market-place for neighbouring villages. The hundreds +<a name="Page_202" id="Page_202"></a>of Africans who were bartering in the market-place +turned and stared at the strange white woman who +swiftly passed through their midst and disappeared +into the bush beyond.</p> + +<p>So she pressed on for hour after hour, her head +throbbing with fever, her dauntless spirit driving her +trembling, timid body onward till at last, when she had +been walking almost ceaselessly for over eight hours, +she tottered into the village of the sick chief.</p> + + +<p><i>The Healing Hand.</i></p> + +<p>Mary Slessor, aching from head to foot with fever +and overwhelming weariness, did not lie down even +for a moment's rest, but walked straight to the chief +who lay senseless on his mat on the mud floor. Having +examined him she took from her little medicine chest +a drug and gave a dose to the chief. But she could +see at once that more of this medicine was needed than +she had with her. She knew that, away on the other +side of the river, some hours distant, another missionary +was working.</p> + +<p>"You must go across the river to Ikorofiong for +more medicine."</p> + +<p>"No, no!" they said, "we dare not go. They will +slay any man who goes there."</p> + +<p>She was in despair. Then someone said, "There +is a man of that country living in his canoe on the river. +Perhaps he would go?"</p> + +<p>They ran down to the river and found him. After +much persuading he at last went, and returned next +day with the medicine.</p> + +<p>The chief, whom the women had believed to be +<a name="Page_203" id="Page_203"></a>almost dead, gradually recovered consciousness, then +sat up and took food. At last he was quite well. All +the village laughed and sang for joy. There would be +no slaying. They gathered round Mary Slessor in +grateful wonder at her magic powers. She told them +that she had come to them because she worshipped the +Great Physician Jesus Christ, the Son of the Father—God +who made all things. Then she gathered them together +in the morning and evening, and led them as +with bowed heads they all thanked God for the healing +of the chief.</p> + + +<h4>III. <span class="smcap">Valiant in Fight</span></h4> + +<p>Years passed by and Mary Slessor's name was +known in all the villages for many miles. She was, +to them, the white Ma who was brave and wise and +kind. She was mad, they thought, because she was +always rescuing the twin babies whom the Calabar +people throw out to die and the mothers of twins +whom they often kill. But in some strange way they +felt that her wisdom, her skill in healing men, and her +courage, which was more heroic than that of their +bravest warriors, came from the Spirit who made all +things. She would wrench guns from the hands of +drunken savage men who were three times as strong +as she was. At last she used to sit with their chief as +judge of quarrels, and many times in palavers between +villages she stopped the people from going to war.</p> + + +<p><i>Through the Forest Perilous</i></p> + +<p>One day a secret message came to her that, in some +villages far away, a man of one village had wounded +<a name="Page_204" id="Page_204"></a>the chief in another village and that all the warriors +were arming and holding councils of war.</p> + +<p>"I must go and stop it," said Mary Slessor.</p> + +<p>"You cannot," said her friends at Ekenge, "the +steamer is coming to take you home to Britain because +you are so ill. You will miss the boat. You are too +ill to walk. The wild beasts in the woods will kill +you. The savage warriors are out, and will kill you in +the dark—not knowing who you are."</p> + +<p>"But I must go," she answered.</p> + +<p>The chief insisted that she must have two armed +men with lanterns with her, and that she must get the +chief of a neighbouring village to send out his drummer +with her so that people might know—as they heard the +drum—that a protected person was travelling who must +not be harmed.</p> + +<p>It was night, and Mary Slessor with her two companions +marched out into the darkness, the lanterns +throwing up strange shadows that looked like fierce +men in the darkness. Through the night they walked +till at midnight they reached the village where they were +to ask for the drum.</p> + +<p>The chief was surly.</p> + +<p>"You are going to a warlike people," he said. "They +will not listen to what a woman says. You had better +go back. I will not protect you."</p> + +<p>Mary Slessor was on her mettle.</p> + +<p>"When you think of the woman's power," she said +to the chief, "you forget the power of the woman's +God. I shall go on."</p> + +<p>And to the amazement of the savages in the villages +she went on into the darkness. Surely she must be +<a name="Page_205" id="Page_205"></a>mad. She defied their chief who had the power to +kill her. She had walked on into a forest where ferocious +leopards abounded ready to spring out upon her, +and where men were drinking themselves into a fury +of war. And for what? To try with a woman's +tongue to stop the fiery chiefs and the savages of a +distant warlike tribe from fighting. Surely she was +mad.</p> + + +<p><i>Facing the Warriors</i></p> + +<p>She pressed on through the darkness. Then she saw +the dim outlines of huts. Mary Slessor had reached +the first town in the war area. She found the hut +where an old Calabar woman lived who knew the white +Ma.</p> + +<p>"Who is there?" came a whisper from within.</p> + +<p>But even as she replied there was a swift patter of +bare feet. Out of the darkness leapt a score of armed +warriors. They were all round her. From all parts +dark shadows sprang forward till scores of men with +their chiefs were jostling, chattering and threatening.</p> + +<p>"What have you come for?" they asked.</p> + +<p>"I have heard that you are going to war. I have +come to ask you not to fight," she replied.</p> + +<p>The chiefs hurriedly talked together, then they came +to her and said—</p> + +<p>"The white Ma is welcome. She shall hear all that +we have to say before we fight. All the same we shall +fight. For here you see are men wounded. We <i>must</i> +wipe out the disgrace that is put upon us. Now she +must rest. Women, you take care of the white Ma. +We will call her at cock-crow when we start."</p> + +<p><a name="Page_206" id="Page_206"></a>This meant an hour's sleep. Mary Slessor lay down +in a hut. It seemed as though her eyes were hardly +shut before she was wakened again. She stood, tottering +with tiredness, when she heard the cry—</p> + +<p>"Run, Ma, run!"</p> + +<p>The warriors were off down the hill away to the +fight. She ran, but they were quickly out of sight +on the way to the attack. Was all her trouble in vain? +She pressed on weak and breathless, but determined. +She heard wild yells and the roll of the war drum. The +warriors she had followed were feverishly making +ready to fight, a hundred yards distant from the enemy's +village.</p> + +<p>She went up to them and spoke sternly.</p> + +<p>"Behave like men," she said, "not like fools. Do +not yell and shout. Hold your peace. I am going into +the village there."</p> + +<p>She pointed to the enemy. Then she walked forward. +Ahead of her stood the enemy in unbroken +ranks of dark warriors. They stood like a solid wall. +She hailed them as she walked forward.</p> + +<p>There was an ominous silence. She laughed.</p> + +<p>"How perfect your manners are!" she exclaimed. +She was about to walk forward and force them to make +way for her when an old chief stepped out toward her +and, to her amazement, knelt down at her feet.</p> + +<p>"Ma," he said, "we thank you for coming to us. We +own that we wounded the chief over there. It was only +one of our men who did it. It was not the act of all +our town. We ask you that you will speak with our +enemy to bring them to peace with us."</p> + +<p><a name="Page_207" id="Page_207"></a><i>The Healed Chief</i></p> + +<p>She looked into the face of the chief. Then she saw +to her joy that this was the very chief whom she had +toiled through the rain to heal long ago. Because of +what she had done then, he was now at her feet asking +her to make peace. Should she run back and tell the +warriors, who a hundred yards away were spoiling for +a fight? That was her first joyful thought. Then she +saw that she must first make her authority stronger over +the whole band of warriors.</p> + +<p>"Stay where you are," she said. "Some of you +find a place where I can sit in comfort; and bring me +food. I will not starve while men fight. Choose two +or three men to speak well for you, and we will have +two men from your enemies."</p> + +<p>These grim warriors, so sullen and threatening a +few moments ago, obeyed her every word. At length +two chiefs came from the other side and stood on one +side of her, while the two chiefs chosen in the village +came and threw down their arms and knelt at their +feet.</p> + +<p>"Your chief," they said, "was wounded by a drunken +youth. Do not let us shed blood through all our villages +because of what he did. If you will cease from +war with us, we will pay to you any fine that the white +Ma shall say."</p> + +<p>She, too, pressed them to stop their fighting. Word +went back to the warriors on both sides, who became +wildly excited. Some agreed, others stormed and +raged till they were in a frenzy. Would they fight even +over her body? Furious warriors came moving up +<a name="Page_208" id="Page_208"></a>from both sides. But by arguing and appealing at last +she persuaded the warlike tribe to accept a fine.</p> + + +<p><i>The Promise of Peace</i></p> + +<p>The town whose drunken youth had wounded the +enemy chief at once paid a part of the fine. They used +no money. So the fine was paid in casks and bottles +of trade gin. Mary Slessor trembled. For as the +boxes of gin bottles were brought forward the warriors +pranced with excitement and made ready to get drunk. +She knew that this would make them fight after all. +What could she do? The roar of voices rose. She +could not make her own voice heard. A daring idea +flashed into her mind. According to the law of these +Egbo people, clothes thrown over anything give it the +protection of your body. She snatched off her skirt and +all the clothing she could spare and spread them over +the gin. She seized the one glass that the tribe had, +and doled out one portion only to each chief to test +whether the bottles indeed contained spirit. At last +they grew quieter and she spoke to them.</p> + +<p>"I am going," she said, "across the Great Waters +to my home, and I shall be away many moons. Promise +me here, on both sides, that you will not go to war +with one another while I am away."</p> + +<p>"We promise," they said. They gathered around +her and she told them the story of Jesus Christ in +whose name she had come to them.</p> + +<p>"Now," she said, "go to your rest and fight no +more." And the tribes kept their promise to her,—so +that when she returned they could say, "It is peace."</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p><a name="Page_209" id="Page_209"></a>For nearly forty years she worked on in Calabar, +stricken scores of times with fever. She rescued her +hundreds of twin babies thrown out to die in the forest, +stopped wars and ordeal by poison, made peace, healed +the sick.</p> + +<p>At last, too weak to walk, she was wheeled through +the forests and along the valleys by some of her +"twins" now grown to strong children, and died there—the +conquering Queen of Calabar, who ruled in the +hearts of even the fiercest cannibals through the power +of the Faith, by which out of weakness she was made +strong.</p> + +<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3><p><a name="Page_210" id="Page_210"></a></p><p><a name="Page_211" id="Page_211"></a></p> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_57_57" id="Footnote_57_57"></a><a href="#FNanchor_57_57"><span class="label">[57]</span></a> The African uses the word "Ma" as mother, (<i>a</i>) to name a woman +after her eldest son, <i>e.g.</i> Mrs. Livingstone was called Ma-Robert; and +(<i>b</i>) as in this case, for a woman whom they respect.</p></div> +</div> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="Book_Four_HEROINES_AND_HEROES_OF_PLATEAU_AND_DESERT" id="Book_Four_HEROINES_AND_HEROES_OF_PLATEAU_AND_DESERT"></a>Book Four: HEROINES AND HEROES OF PLATEAU AND DESERT</h2> + + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><a name="Page_212" id="Page_212"></a></p><p><a name="Page_213" id="Page_213"></a></p> +<h3><a name="CHAPTER_XXIII" id="CHAPTER_XXIII"></a>CHAPTER XXIII</h3> + +<h4>SONS OF THE DESERT</h4> + +<p class='center'><i>Abdallah and Sabat</i></p> + +<p class='center'>(Time of Incidents, about 1800-1810)</p> + + +<p><i>Two Arab Wanderers</i></p> + +<p>One day, more than a hundred years ago, two young +Arabs, Abdallah and Sabat, rode on their camels toward +a city that was hidden among the tawny hills standing +upon the skyline.</p> + +<p>The sun was beginning to drop toward the edge of +the desert away in the direction of the Red Sea. The +shadows of the long swinging legs of the camels wavered +in grotesque lines on the sand. There was a look +of excited expectation in the eyes of the young Arabs; +for, by sunset, their feet would walk the city of their +dreams.</p> + +<p>They were bound for Mecca, the birthplace of Mohammed, +the Holy City toward which every man of +the Mohammedan world turns five times a day as he +cries, "There is no God but Allah, and Mohammed is +the prophet of Allah." To have worshipped in Mecca +before the sacred Kaaba and to have kissed the black +stone in its wall—this was to make Paradise certain +for them both. Having done that pilgrimage these two +Arabs, Sabat and Abdallah, would be able to take the +proud title of "Haji" which would proclaim to every +<a name="Page_214" id="Page_214"></a>man that they had been to Mecca—the Holy of Holies.</p> + +<p>So they pressed on by the valley between the hills +till they saw before them the roofs and the minarets of +Mecca itself. As darkness rushed across the desert +and the stars came out, the tired camels knelt in the +courtyard of the Khan,<a name="FNanchor_58_58" id="FNanchor_58_58"></a><a href="#Footnote_58_58" class="fnanchor">[58]</a> and Sabat and Abdallah +alighted and stretched their cramped legs, and took their +sleep.</p> + +<p>These young men, Sabat and Abdallah, the sons of +notable Arab chiefs, had struck up a great friendship. +Now, each in company with his chum, they were together +at the end of the greatest journey that an Arab +can take.</p> + +<p>As the first faint flush of pink touched the mountain +beyond Mecca, the cry came from the minaret: "Come +to prayer. Prayer is better than sleep. There is no +God but Allah."</p> + +<p>Sabat and Abdallah were already up and out, and +that day they said the Mohammedan prayer before the +Kaaba itself with other pilgrims who had come from +many lands—from Egypt and Abyssinia, from Constantinople +and Damascus, Baghdad and Bokhara, from +the defiles of the Khyber Pass, from the streets of +Delhi and the harbour of Zanzibar.</p> + +<p>We do not know what Abdallah looked like. He was +probably like most young Arab chieftains, a tall, sinewy +man—brown-faced, dark-eyed, with hair and a +short-cropped beard that were between brown and +black.</p> + +<p>His friend Sabat was, however, so striking that even +<a name="Page_215" id="Page_215"></a>in that great crowd of many pilgrims people would +turn to look at him. They would turn round, for one +reason, because of Sabat's voice. Even when he was +just talking to his friend his voice sounded like a roar; +when he got excited and in a passion (as he very +often did) it rolled like thunder and was louder than +most men's shouting. As he spoke his large white +teeth gleamed in his wide mouth. His brown face and +black arched eyebrows were a dark setting for round +eyes that flashed as he spoke. His black beard flowed +over his tawny throat and neck. Gold earrings swung +with his agitation and a gold chain gleamed round his +neck. He wore a bright silk jacket with long sleeves, +and long, loose-flowing trousers and richly embroidered +shoes with turned-up toes. From a girdle round his +waist hung a dagger whose handle and hilt flashed with +jewels.</p> + +<p>Abdallah and Sabat were better educated than most +Arabs, for they could both read. But they were not +men who could stay in one place and read and think in +quiet. When they had finished their worship at Mecca, +they determined to ride far away across the deserts +eastward, even to Kabul in the mountains of Afghanistan. +So they rode, first northward up the great camel-route +toward Damascus, and then eastward. In spite +of robbers and hungry jackals, through mountain +gorges, over streams, across the Syrian desert from +oasis to oasis, and then across the Euphrates and the +Tigris they went, till they had climbed rung by rung +the mountain ranges that hold up the great plateau of +Persia.</p> + +<p>At last they broke in upon the rocky valleys of Af<a name="Page_216" id="Page_216"></a>ghanistan +and came to the gateway of India—to Kabul. +They presented themselves to Zeman Shah, the ruler +of Afghanistan, and he was so taken with Abdallah's +capacity that he asked him to be one of his officers in +the court. So Abdallah stayed in Kabul. But the restless, +fiery Sabat turned the face of his camel westward +and rode back into Persia to the lovely city of Bokhara.</p> + + +<p><i>Abdallah the Daring</i></p> + +<p>In Kabul there was an Armenian whose name we do +not know: but he owned a book printed in Arabic, a +book that Abdallah could read. The Armenian lent it +to him. There were hardly any books in Arabic, so +Abdallah took this book and read it eagerly. As he +read, he thought that he had never in all his life heard +of such wonderful things, and he could feel in his very +bones that they were true. He read four short true +stories in this book: they were what we call the Gospels +according to Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. As +he read, Abdallah saw in the stories Someone who was +infinitely greater than Mohammed—One who was so +strong and gentle that He was always helping children +and women and people who were ill; so good that He +always lived the very life that God willed; and so brave +that He died rather than give in to evil men—our Lord +Jesus Christ.</p> + +<p>"I worship Him," said Abdallah in his heart. Then +he did a very daring thing. He knew that if he turned +Christian it would be the duty of Mohammedans to kill +him. Why not keep quiet and say nothing about his +change of heart? But he could not. He decided that +<a name="Page_217" id="Page_217"></a>he must come out in the open and confess the new +Captain of his life. He was baptized a Christian.</p> + +<p>The Moslems were furious. To save his life Abdallah +fled on his camel westward to Bokhara. But the +news that he had become a Christian flew even faster +than he himself rode. As he went along the streets of +Bokhara he saw his friend Sabat coming toward him. +As a friend, Sabat desired to save Abdallah; but as a +Moslem, the cruel law of Mohammed said that he +must have him put to death. And Sabat was a fiery, +hot-tempered Moslem.</p> + +<p>"I had no pity," Sabat told his friends afterward. +"I delivered him up to Morad Shah, the King."</p> + +<p>So Abdallah was bound and carried before the Moslem +judges. His friend Sabat stood by watching, just +as Saul had stood watching them stone Stephen nearly +eighteen centuries earlier.</p> + +<p>"You shall be given your life and be set free," they +said, "if you will spit upon the Cross and renounce +Christ and say, 'There is no God but Allah.'"</p> + +<p>"I refuse," said Abdallah.</p> + +<p>A sword was brought forward and unsheathed. Abdallah's +arm was stretched out: the sword was lifted—it +flashed—and Abdallah's hand, cut clean off, fell on +the ground, while the blood spurted from his arm.</p> + +<p>"Your life will still be given you if you renounce +Christ and proclaim Allah and Mohammed as His +prophet."</p> + +<p>This is how Sabat himself described what happened +next. "Abdallah made no answer, but looked up steadfastly +toward heaven, like Stephen, the first martyr, +his eyes streaming with tears. He looked at me," said<a name="Page_218" id="Page_218"></a> +Sabat, "but it was with the countenance of forgiveness."</p> + +<p>Abdallah's other arm was stretched out, again the +sword flashed and fell. His other hand dropped to the +ground. He stood there bleeding and handless. He +bowed his head and his neck was bared to the sword. +Again the blade flashed. He was beheaded, and Sabat—Sabat +who had ridden a thousand miles with his +friend and had faced with him the blistering sun of the +desert and the snow-blizzard of the mountain—saw Abdallah's +head lie there on the ground and the dead body +carried away.</p> + +<p>Abdallah had died because he was faithful to Jesus +Christ and because Sabat had obeyed the law of Mohammed.</p> + + +<p><i>The Old Sabat and the New</i></p> + +<p>The news spread through Bokhara like a forest fire. +They could hardly believe that a man would die for the +Christian faith like that. As Sabat told his friends +afterward, "All Bokhara seemed to say, 'What new +thing is this?'"</p> + +<p>But Sabat was in agony of mind. Nothing that he +could do would take away from his eyes the vision of +his friend's face as Abdallah had looked at him when +his hands were being cut off. He plunged out on to the +camel tracks of Asia to try to forget. He wandered far +and he wandered long, but he could not forget or find +rest for his tortured mind.</p> + +<p>At last he sailed away on the seas and landed on the +coast of India at Madras. The British East India Company +then ruled in India, and they gave Sabat a post in +<a name="Page_219" id="Page_219"></a>the civil courts as mufti, <i>i.e.</i> as an expounder of the +law of Mohammed. He spent most of his time in a +coast town north of Madras, called Vizagapatam.<a name="FNanchor_59_59" id="FNanchor_59_59"></a><a href="#Footnote_59_59" class="fnanchor">[59]</a> A +friend handed to him there a little book in his native +language—Arabic. It was another translation of +those stories that Abdallah had read in Kabul—it was +the New Testament.<a name="FNanchor_60_60" id="FNanchor_60_60"></a><a href="#Footnote_60_60" class="fnanchor">[60]</a></p> + +<p>Sabat sat reading this New Book. He then took up +the book of Mohammed's law—the Koran—which it +was his daily work to explain. He compared the two. +"The truth came"—as he himself said—"like a flood +of light." He too began to worship Jesus Christ, +whose life he had read now for the first time in the +New Testament. Sabat decided that he must follow in +Abdallah's footsteps. He became a Christian.<a name="FNanchor_61_61" id="FNanchor_61_61"></a><a href="#Footnote_61_61" class="fnanchor">[61]</a> He +was then twenty-seven years of age.</p> + + +<p><i>The Brother's Dagger</i></p> + +<p>In the world of the East news travels like magic by +Arab dhow (sailing ship) and camel caravan. Very +quickly the news was in Arabia that Sabat had renounced +Mohammed and become a Christian. At once +Sabat's brother rose, girded on his dagger, left the tents +of his tribe, mounted his camel and coursed across +Arabia to a port. There he took ship for Madras. +Landing, he disguised himself as an Indian and went up +to Vizagapatam to the house where his brother Sabat +was living.</p> + +<p>Sabat saw this Indian, as he appeared to be, standing +<a name="Page_220" id="Page_220"></a>before him. He suspected nothing. Suddenly the disguised +brother put his hand within his robe, seized his +dagger, and leaping at Sabat made a fierce blow at him. +Sabat flung out his arm. He spoilt his brother's aim, +but he was too late to save himself. He was wounded, +but not killed. The brother threw off his disguise, +and Sabat—remembering the forgiveness of Abdallah—forgave +his brother, gave him many presents, and +sent loving messages to his mother.</p> + +<p>Sabat decided that he could no longer work as an +expounder of Moslem law: he wanted to do work that +would help to spread the Christian Faith. He went +away north to Calcutta, and there he joined the great +men who were working at the task of translating the +Bible into different languages and printing them. This +work pleased Sabat, for was it not through reading an +Arabic New Testament that all his own life had been +changed?</p> + +<p>Because Sabat knew Persian as well as Arabic he was +sent to help a very clever young chaplain from England +named Henry Martyn, who was busily at work translating +the New Testament into Persian and Arabic. So +Sabat went up the Ganges to Cawnpore with Henry +Martyn.</p> + +<p>Sabat's fiery temper nearly drove Martyn wild. His +was a flaming Arab spirit, hot-headed and impetuous; +yet he would be ready to die for the man he cared for; +proud and often ignorant, yet simple—as Martyn said, +"an artless child of the desert."</p> + +<p>Sabat's knowledge of Persian was not really so good +as he himself thought it was, and some of the Indian +translators at Calcutta criticised his translation. At +<a name="Page_221" id="Page_221"></a>this he got furiously angry, and, like St. Peter, the +fiery, impetuous apostle, he denied Jesus Christ and +spoke against Christianity.</p> + +<p>With his heart burning with rage and his great voice +thundering with anger, Sabat left his friends, went +aboard ship and sailed down the Bay of Bengal by the +Indo-Chinese coast till he came to Penang, where he +began to live as a trader.</p> + +<p>But by this time the fire of his anger had burnt itself +out. He—again like Peter—remembered his denial of +his Master, and when he saw in a Penang newspaper +an article saying that the famous Sabat, who had become +a Christian and then become a Mohammedan +again, had come to live in their city, he wrote a letter +which was published in the newspaper at Penang declaring +that he was now—and for good and all—a +Christian.</p> + +<p>A British officer named Colonel MacInnes was stationed +at Penang. Sabat went to him. "My mind is +full of great sorrow," he said, "because I denied Jesus +Christ. I have not had a moment's peace since Satan +made me do that bad work. I did it for revenge. I +only want to do one thing with my life: to spend it in +undoing this evil that has come through my denial."</p> + +<p>Sabat left the house of the Mohammedan with whom +he was living in Penang. He found an old friend of +his named Johannes, an Armenian Christian merchant, +who had lived in Madras in the very days when Sabat +first became a Christian. Every night Johannes the +Armenian and Sabat the Arab got out their Bibles, and +far into the night Sabat would explain their meaning +to Johannes.</p> + +<p><a name="Page_222" id="Page_222"></a><i>The Prince from Sumatra</i></p> + +<p>One day all Penang was agog with excitement because +a brown Prince from Acheen, a Malay State in +the island of Sumatra, had suddenly sailed into the +harbour. He was in flight from his own land, where +rebels had attacked him. The people of Acheen were +wild and ferocious; many of them were cannibals.</p> + +<p>"I will join you in helping to recover your throne," +said Sabat to the fugitive Prince. "I am going," said +Sabat to Colonel MacInnes, "to see if I can carry the +message of Christianity to this fierce people."</p> + +<p>So Sabat and the Prince, with others, went aboard +a sailing ship and crossed the Strait of Malacca to +Sumatra. They landed, and for long the struggle with +the rebels swayed from side to side. The Prince was so +pleased with Sabat that he made him his Prime Minister. +But the struggle dragged on and on; there +seemed to be no hope of triumph. At last Sabat decided +to go back to Penang. One day he left the +Prince and started off, but soldiers of the rebel-chief +Syfoolalim captured him.</p> + +<p>Great was the joy of the rebels—their powerful +enemy was in their hands! They bound him, threw +him into a boat, hoisted him aboard a sailing ship and +clapped him in the stifling darkness of the hold. As he +lay there he pierced his arm to make it bleed, and, with +the blood that came out, wrote on a piece of paper that +was smuggled out and sent to Penang to Colonel MacInnes.</p> + +<p>The agonies that Sabat suffered in the gloom and +filth of that ship's hold no one will ever know. We can +<a name="Page_223" id="Page_223"></a>learn from the words that he wrote in the blood from +his own body that they loaded worse horrors upon him +because he was a Christian. All the scene is black, but +out of the darkness comes a voice that makes us feel +that Sabat was faithful at the end. In his last letter to +Colonel MacInnes he told how he was now ready (like +his friend Abdallah) to die for the sake of that Master +whom he had in his rage denied.</p> + +<p>Then one day his cruel gaolers came to the hold +where he lay, and, binding his limbs, thrust him into a +sack, which they then closed. In the choking darkness +of the sack he was carried on deck and dragged to the +side of the ship. He heard the lapping of the waves. +He felt himself lifted and then hurled out into the air, +and down—down with a crash into the waters of the +sea, which closed over him for ever.</p> + +<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3><p><a name="Page_224" id="Page_224"></a></p> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_58_58" id="Footnote_58_58"></a><a href="#FNanchor_58_58"><span class="label">[58]</span></a> The inn of the Near East—a square courtyard with all the doors and +windows inside, with primitive stables and bunks for the camelmen, and +sometimes rooms for the well-to-do travellers.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_59_59" id="Footnote_59_59"></a><a href="#FNanchor_59_59"><span class="label">[59]</span></a> Pronounce Vi-zah'-ga-pat-ahm.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_60_60" id="Footnote_60_60"></a><a href="#FNanchor_60_60"><span class="label">[60]</span></a> The Arabic New Testament revised by Solomon Negri and sent to +India by the Society for the Promotion of Christian Knowledge in the +middle of the eighteenth century.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_61_61" id="Footnote_61_61"></a><a href="#FNanchor_61_61"><span class="label">[61]</span></a> Baptized "Nathaniel" at Madras by the Rev. Dr Kerr.</p></div> +</div> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h3><a name="CHAPTER_XXIV" id="CHAPTER_XXIV"></a>CHAPTER XXIV</h3> + +<h4>A RACE AGAINST TIME</h4> + +<p class='center'><i>Henry Martyn</i></p> + +<p class='center'>(Dates, b. 1781, d. 1812. Time of Incident 1810-12)</p> + + +<p>In the story of Sabat that was told in the previous +chapter you will remember that, for a part of the time +that he lived in India, he worked with an Englishman +named Henry Martyn.</p> + +<p>Sabat was almost a giant; Henry Martyn was slight +and not very strong. Yet—as we shall see in the story +that follows—Henry Martyn was braver and more +constant than Sabat himself.</p> + +<p>As a boy Henry, who was born and went to school in +Truro, in Cornwall, in the West of England, was violently +passionate, sensitive, and physically rather +fragile, and at school was protected from bullies by a +big boy, the son of Admiral Kempthorne.</p> + +<p>He left school at the age of fifteen and shot and +read till he was seventeen. In 1797 he became an undergraduate +at St. John's College, Cambridge. He was +still very passionate.</p> + +<p>For instance, when a man was "ragging" him in the +College Hall at dinner, he was so furious that he flung +a knife at him, which stuck quivering in the panelling +of the wall. Kempthorne, his old friend, was at Cambridge +with him. They used to read the Bible to<a name="Page_225" id="Page_225"></a>gether +and Martyn became a real Christian and fought +hard to overcome his violent temper.</p> + +<p>He was a very clever scholar and became a Fellow of +Jesus College in 1802. He at that time took orders in +the Church of England. He became very keen on reading +about missionary work, e.g. Carey's story of nine +years' work in <i>Periodical Accounts</i>, and the L.M.S. +Report on Vanderkemp in South Africa. "I read nothing +else while it lasted," he said of the Vanderkemp +report.</p> + +<p>He was accepted as a chaplain of the East India +Company. They could not sail till Admiral Nelson +gave the word, because the French were waiting to capture +all the British ships. Five men-of-war convoyed +them when they sailed in 1805. They waited off Ireland, +because the immediate invasion of England by +Napoleon was threatened. On board Martyn worked +hard at Hindustani, Bengali and Portuguese. He already +knew Greek, Latin and Hebrew. He arrived at +Madras (South India) and Calcutta and thence went +to Cawnpore. It is at this point that our yarn begins.</p> + +<p>A voice like thunder, speaking in a strange tongue, +shouted across an Indian garden one night in 1809.</p> + +<p>The new moon, looking "like a ball of ebony in an +ivory cup,"—as one who was there that night said—threw +a cold light over the palm trees and aloes, on the +man who was speaking and on those who were seated +around him at the table in the bungalow.</p> + +<p>Beyond the garden the life of Cawnpore moved in its +many streets; the shout of a donkey-driver, the shrill +of a bugle from the barracks broke sharply through +the muffled sounds of the city. The June wind, heavy +<a name="Page_226" id="Page_226"></a>with the waters of the Ganges which flows past Cawnpore, +made the night insufferably hot. But the heat +did not trouble Sabat, the wild son of the Arabian desert, +who was talking—as he always did—in a roaring +voice that was louder than most men's shouting. He +was telling the story of Abdallah's brave death as a +Christian martyr.<a name="FNanchor_62_62" id="FNanchor_62_62"></a><a href="#Footnote_62_62" class="fnanchor">[62]</a></p> + +<p>Quietly listening to Sabat's voice—though he could +not understand what he was saying—was a young Italian, +Padre Julius Cæsar, a monk of the order of the +Jesuits. On his head was a little skull-cap, over his +body a robe of fine purple satin held with a girdle of +twisted silk.</p> + +<p>Near him sat an Indian scholar—on his dark head a +full turban, and about him richly-coloured robes. On +the other side sat a little, thin, copper-coloured Bengali +dressed in white, and a British officer in his scarlet and +gold uniform, with his wife, who has told us the story +of that evening.</p> + +<p>Not one of these brightly dressed people was, however, +the strongest power there. A man in black +clothes was the real centre of the group. Very slight +in build, not tall, clean-shaven, with a high forehead +and sensitive lips, young Henry Martyn seemed a stripling +beside the flaming Arab. Yet Sabat, with all his +sound and fury, was no match for the swift-witted, +clear-brained young Englishman. Henry Martyn was +a chaplain in the army of the East India Company, +which then ruled in India.</p> + +<p>He was the only one of those who were listening to +Sabat who could understand what he was saying.<a name="Page_227" id="Page_227"></a> +When Sabat had finished his story, Martyn turned, and, +in his clear, musical voice translated it from the Persian +into Latin mixed with Italian for Padre Julius Cæsar, +into Hindustani for the Indian scholar, into Bengali +for the Bengal gentleman, and into English for the +British officer and his wife. Martyn could also talk to +Sabat himself both in Arabic and in Persian.</p> + +<p>As Martyn listened to the rolling sentences of Sabat, +the Christian Arab, he seemed to see the lands beyond +India, away across the Khyber Pass, where Sabat had +travelled—Mesopotamia, Arabia, Persia.</p> + +<p>Henry Martyn knew that in all those lands the people +were Mohammedans. He wanted one thing above +everything else in the world: that was to give them all +the chance of doing what Sabat and Abdallah had +done—the chance of reading in their own languages the +one book in the world that could tell them that God was +a Father—the book of letters and of biographies that +we call the New Testament.</p> + + +<p><i>The Toil of Brain</i></p> + +<p>There was not in the world a copy of the New Testament +in good Persian. To make one Henry Martyn +slaved hard, far into the hot, sultry Indian nights, with +scores of mosquitoes "pinging" round his lamp and +his head, grinding at his Persian grammar, so that he +could translate the life of Jesus Christ into that language.</p> + +<p>Even while he was listening to Sabat's story in the +bungalow at Cawnpore, Martyn knew that he was so +ill that he could not live for many years more. The +<a name="Page_228" id="Page_228"></a>doctor said that he must leave India for a time to be +in a healthier place. Should he go home to England, +where all his friends were? He wanted that; but much +more he wanted to go on with his work. So he asked +the doctor if he might go to Persia on the way home, +and he agreed.</p> + +<p>So Martyn went down from Cawnpore to Calcutta, +and in a boat down the Hoogli river to the little Arab +coasting sailing ship the <i>Hummoudi</i>, which hoisted sail +and started on its voyage round India to Bombay. +Martyn read while on board the Old Testament in the +original Hebrew and the New Testament in the original +Greek, so that he might understand them better +and make a more perfect translation into Persian. He +read the Koran of Mohammed so that he could argue +with the Persians about it. And he worked hard +at Arabic grammar, and read books in Persian. Yet +he was for ever cracking jokes with his fellow travellers, +cooped up in the little ship on the hot tropical +seas.</p> + +<p>From Bombay the governor granted Martyn a passage +up the Persian Gulf in the <i>Benares</i>, a ship in the +Indian Navy that was going on a cruise to finish the +exciting work of hunting down the fierce Arab pirates +of the Persian Gulf. So on Lady Day, 1811, the sailors +got her under weigh and tacked northward up the Gulf, +till at last, on May 21, the roofs and minarets of Bushire +hove in sight. Martyn, leaning over the bulwarks, +could see the town jutting out into the Gulf on a spit +of sand and the sea almost surrounding it. That day +he set foot for the first time on the soil of Persia.</p> + +<p><a name="Page_229" id="Page_229"></a><i>Across Persia on a Pony</i></p> + +<p>Aboard ship Martyn had allowed his beard and moustache +to grow. When he landed at Bushire he bought +and wore the clothes of a Persian gentleman, so that +he should escape from attracting everybody's notice by +wearing clothes such as the people had never seen before.</p> + +<p>No one who had seen the pale, clean-shaven clergyman +in black silk coat and trousers in Cawnpore would +have recognised the Henry Martyn who rode out that +night on his pony with an Armenian servant, Zechariah +of Isfahan, on his long one hundred and seventy mile +journey from Bushire to Shiraz. He wore a conical +cap of black Astrakhan fur, great baggy trousers of +blue, bright red leather boots, a light tunic of chintz, +and over that a flowing cloak.</p> + +<p>They went out through the gates of Bushire on to the +great plain of burning sand that stretched away for +ninety miles ahead of them. They travelled by night, +because the day was intolerably hot, but even at midnight +the heat was over 100 degrees. It was a fine +moonlight night; the stars sparkled over the plain. The +bells tinkled on the mules' necks as they walked across +the sand. All else was silent.</p> + +<p>At last dawn broke. Martyn pitched his little tent +under a tree, the only shelter he could get. Gradually +the heat grew more and more intense. He was already +so ill that it was difficult to travel.</p> + +<p>"When the thermometer was above 112 degrees—fever +heat," says Martyn, "I began to lose my strength +fast. It became intolerable. I wrapped myself up in +<a name="Page_230" id="Page_230"></a>a blanket and all the covering I could get to defend +myself from the air. By this means the moisture was +kept a little longer upon the body. I thought I should +have lost my senses. The thermometer at last stood +at 126 degrees. I concluded that death was inevitable."</p> + +<p>At last the sun went down: the thermometer crept +lower: it was night and time to start again. But +Martyn had not slept or eaten. He could hardly sit +upright on his pony. Yet he set out and travelled on +through the night.</p> + +<p>Next morning he had a little shelter of leaves and +branches made, and an Arab poured water on the +leaves and on Martyn all day to try to keep some of +the frightful heat from him. But even then the heat +almost slew him. So they marched on through another +night and then camped under a grove of date palms.</p> + +<p>"I threw myself on the burning ground and slept," +Martyn wrote. "When the tent came up I awoke in a +burning fever. All day I had recourse to the wet +towel, which kept me alive, but would allow of no +sleep."</p> + +<p>At nine that night they struck camp. The ground +threw up the heat that it had taken from the sun during +the day. So frightfully hot was the air that even at +midnight Martyn could not travel without a wet towel +round his face and neck.</p> + +<p>As the night drew on the plain grew rougher: then it +began to rise to the foothills and mountains. At last +the pony and mules were clambering up rough steep +paths so wild that there was (as Martyn said) "nothing +to mark the road but the rocks being a little more worn +in one place than in another." Suddenly in the dark<a name="Page_231" id="Page_231"></a>ness +the pony stopped; dimly through the gloom Martyn +could see that they were on the edge of a tremendous +precipice. A single step more would have plunged him +over, to be smashed on the rocks hundreds of feet +below. Martyn did not move or try to guide the beast: +he knew that the pony himself was the safest guide. +In a minute or two the animal moved, and step by step +clambered carefully up the rock-strewn mountain-side.</p> + +<p>At last they came out on the mountain top, but only +to find that they were on the edge of a flat high plain—a +tableland. The air was pure and fresher; the mules +and the travellers revived. Martyn's pony began to +trot briskly along. So, as dawn came up, they came in +sight of a great courtyard built by the king of that +country to refresh pilgrims.</p> + +<p>Through night after night they tramped, across +plateau and mountain range, till they climbed the third +range, and then plunged by a winding rocky path into a +wide valley where, at a great town called Kazrun, in a +garden of cypress trees was a summer-house.</p> + +<p>Martyn lay down on the floor but could not sleep, +though he was horribly weary. "There seemed," he +said, "to be fire within my head, my skin like a cinder." +His heart beat like a hammer.</p> + +<p>They went on climbing another range of mountains, +first tormented by mosquitoes, then frozen with cold; +Martyn was so overwhelmed with sleep that he could +not sit on his pony and had to hurry ahead to keep +awake and then sit down with his back against a rock +where he fell asleep in a second, and had to be shaken +to wake up when Zechariah, the Armenian mule driver, +came up to where he was.</p> + +<p><a name="Page_232" id="Page_232"></a>They had at last climbed the four mountain rungs of +the ladder to Persia, and came out on June 11th, 1811, +on the great plain where the city of Shiraz stands. +Here he found the host Jaffir Ali Khan, to whom he +carried his letters of introduction. Martyn in his +Persian dress, seated on the ground, was feasted with +curries and rice, sweets cooled with snow and perfumed +with rose water, and coffee.</p> + +<p>Ali Khan had a lovely garden of orange trees, and in +the garden Martyn sat. Ill as he was, he worked day +in and day out to translate the life of Jesus Christ in +the New Testament from the Greek language into pure +and simple Persian. The kind host put up a tent for +Martyn in the garden, close to some beautiful vines, +from which hung lovely bunches of purple grapes. By +the side of his tent ran a clear stream of running water. +All the evening nightingales sang sweetly and mournfully.</p> + +<p>As he sat there at his work, men came hundreds of +miles to talk with this holy man, as they felt him to be. +Moslems—they yet travelled even from Baghdad and +Bosra and Isfahan to hear this "infidel" speak of Jesus +Christ, and to argue as to which was the true religion. +Prince Abbas Mirza invited him to come to speak with +him; and as Martyn entered the Prince's courtyard a +hundred fountains began to send up jets of water in his +honour.</p> + +<p>At last they came to him in such numbers that +Martyn was obliged to say to many of them that he +could not see them. He hated sending them away. +What was it forced him to do so?</p> + +<p><a name="Page_233" id="Page_233"></a><i>The Race against Time</i></p> + +<p>It was because he was running a race against time. +He knew that he could not live very long, because the +disease that had smitten his lungs was gaining ground +every day. And the thing that he had come to Persia +for—the object that had made him face the long voyage, +the frightful heat and the freezing cold of the journey, +the life thousands of miles from his home in Cornwall—was +that he might finish such a translation of +the New Testament into Persian that men should love +to read years and years after he had died.</p> + +<p>So each day Martyn finished another page or two of +the book, written in lovely Persian letters. He began +the work within a week of reaching Shiraz, and in seven +months (February, 1812) it was finished. Three more +months were spent in writing out very beautiful copies +of the whole of the New Testament in this new translation, +to be presented to the Shah of Persia and to the +heir to the throne, Prince Abbas Mirza.</p> + +<p>Then he started away on a journey right across +Persia to find the Shah and Prince so that he might give +his precious books to them. On the way he fell ill with +great fever; he was so weak and giddy that he could not +stand. One night his head ached so that it almost drove +him mad; he shook all over with fever; then a great +sweat broke out. He was almost unconscious with +weakness, but at midnight when the call came to start +he mounted his horse and, as he says, "set out, rather +dead than alive." So he pressed on in great weakness +till he reached Tabriz, and there met the British Ambassador.</p> + +<p><a name="Page_234" id="Page_234"></a>Martyn was rejoiced, and felt that all his pains were +repaid when Sir Gore Ouseley said that he himself +would present the Sacred Book to the Shah and the +Prince. When the day came to give the book to Prince +Abbas, poor Henry Martyn was so weak that he could +not rise from his bed. Before the other copy could be +presented to the Shah, Martyn had died. This is how +it came about.</p> + + +<p><i>The Last Trail</i></p> + +<p>His great work was done. The New Testament was +finished. He sent a copy to the printers in India. He +could now go home to England and try to get well +again. He started out on horseback with two Armenian +servants and a Turkish guide. He was making +along the old track that has been the road from Asia to +Europe for thousands of years. His plan was to travel +across Persia, through Armenia and over the Black Sea +to Constantinople, and so back to England.</p> + +<p>For forty-five days he moved on, often going as +much as ninety miles, and generally as much as sixty in +a day. He slept in filthy inns where fleas and lice +abounded and mosquitoes tormented him. Horses, +cows, buffaloes and sheep would pass through his sleeping-room, +and the stench of the stables nearly poisoned +him. Yet he was so ill that often he could hardly keep +his seat on his horse.</p> + +<p>He travelled through deep ravines and over high +mountain passes and across vast plains. His head +ached till he felt it would split; he could not eat; fever +came on. He shook with ague. Yet his remorseless<a name="Page_235" id="Page_235"></a> +Turkish guide, Hassan, dragged him along, because he +wanted to get the journey over and go back home.</p> + +<p>At last one day Martyn got rest on damp ground in +a hovel, his eyes and forehead feeling as though a great +fire burnt in them. "I was almost frantic," he wrote. +Martyn was, in fact, dying; yet Hassan compelled him +to ride a hundred and seventy miles of mountain track +to Tokat. Here, on October 6th, 1812, he wrote in his +journal:</p> + +<p>"No horses to be had, I had an unexpected repose. +I sat in the orchard and thought with sweet comfort +and peace of my God—in solitude my Company, my +Friend, my Comforter."</p> + +<p>It was the last word he was ever to write.</p> + +<p>Alone, without a human friend by him, he fell asleep. +But the book that he had written with his life-blood, +the Persian New Testament, was printed, and has told +thousands of Persians in far places, where no Christian +man has penetrated, that story of the love of God that +is shown in Jesus Christ.</p> + +<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3><p><a name="Page_236" id="Page_236"></a></p> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_62_62" id="Footnote_62_62"></a><a href="#FNanchor_62_62"><span class="label">[62]</span></a> See <a href="#CHAPTER_XXIII">Chapter XXIII</a>.</p></div> +</div> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h3><a name="CHAPTER_XXV" id="CHAPTER_XXV"></a>CHAPTER XXV</h3> + +<h4>THE MOSES OF THE ASSYRIANS</h4> + +<p class='center'><i>William Ambrose Shedd</i></p> + +<p class='center'>(1865-1918)</p> + + +<h4>I</h4> + +<p>A dark-haired American with black, penetrating eyes +that looked you steadily in the face, and sparkled with +light when he laughed, sat on a chair in a hall in 1918 +in the ancient city of Urumia in the land of Assyria +where Persia and Turkey meet.</p> + +<p>His face was as brown with the sunshine of this +eastern land as were the wrinkled faces of the turbaned +Assyrian village men who stood before him. For he +was born out here in Persia on Mount Seir.<a name="FNanchor_63_63" id="FNanchor_63_63"></a><a href="#Footnote_63_63" class="fnanchor">[63]</a> And he +had lived here as a boy and a man, save for the time +when his splendid American father had sent him to +Marietta, Ohio, for some of his schooling, and to +Princeton for his final training. His dark brown moustache +and short beard covered a firm mouth and a +strong chin. His vigorous expression and his strongly +Roman nose added to the commanding effect of his +presence.</p> + +<p>A haunting terror had driven these ragged village +<a name="Page_237" id="Page_237"></a>people into the city of Urumia, to ask help of this wonderful +American leader whom they almost worshipped +because he was so strong and just and good.</p> + +<p>For the bloodthirsty Turks and the even more cruel +and wilder Kurds of the mountains were marching on +the land. The Great War was raging across the world +and even the hidden peoples of this distant mountain +land were swept into its terrible flames.</p> + +<p>For Urumia city lies to the west of the southern end +of the extremely salt lake of the same name. It is about +150 miles west from the Caspian Sea and the same distance +north of the site of ancient Nineveh. It stands on +a small plain and in that tangle of lakes, mountains and +valley-plains where the ambitions of Russia, Persia +and Turkey have met, and where the Assyrians (Christians +of one of the most ancient churches in the world, +which in the early centuries had a chain of missions +from Constantinople right across Asia to Peking), the +Kurds (wild, fierce Moslems), the Persians, the Turks +and the Russians struggled together.</p> + +<p>In front of Dr. William Ambrose Shedd there stood +an old man from the villages. His long grey hair and +beard and his wrinkled face were agitated as he told +the American his story. The old man's dress was covered +with patches—an eyewitness counted thirty-seven +patches—all of different colours on one side of his +cloak and loose baggy trousers.</p> + +<p>"My field in my village I cannot plough," he said, +"for we have no ox. The Kurds have taken our possessions, +you are our father. Grant us an ox to plough +and draw for us."</p> + +<p>Dr. Shedd saw that the old man spoke truth; he +<a name="Page_238" id="Page_238"></a>scribbled a few words on a slip of paper and the old +man went out satisfied.</p> + +<p>So for hour after hour, men and women from all the +country round came to this strange missionary who +had been asked by the American Government to administer +relief, yes, and to be the Consul representing +America itself in that great territory.</p> + +<p>They came to him from the villages where, around +the fire in the Khans at night, men still tell stories of +him as one of the great hero-leaders of their race. +These are the kind of stories that they tell of the courage +and the gentleness of this man who—while he was +a fine American scholar—yet knew the very heart of +the Eastern peoples in northwestern Persia as no American +has ever done in all our history.</p> + +<p>"One day," says one old village Assyrian greybeard, +"Dr. Shedd was sitting at meat in his house when +his servant, Meshadi, ran into the room crying, 'The +Kurds have been among our people. They have taken +three girls, three Christian girls, and are carrying them +off. They have just passed the gate.' The Kurds +were all bristling with daggers and pistols. Dr. Shedd +simply picked up the cane that he holds in his hand +when he walks. He hurried out of the house with +Meshadi, ran up the hill to the Kurd village that lies +there, entered, said to the fierce Kurds, 'Give back +those girls to us.' And they, as they looked into his +face, could not resist him though they were armed and +he was not. So they gave the Assyrian girls back to +him and he led them down the hill to their homes."</p> + +<p>So he also stood single-handed between Turks and +five hundred Assyrians who had taken refuge in the +<a name="Page_239" id="Page_239"></a>missionary compound, and stopped the Turks from +massacring the Christians.</p> + +<p>But even as he worked in this way the tide of the +great war flowed towards Urumia. The people there +were mostly Assyrians with some Armenians; they +were Christians. They looked southward across the +mountains to the British Army there in Mesopotamia +for aid.</p> + +<p>But, as the Assyrians looked up from Urumia to the +north they could already see the first Turks coming +down upon the city. Thousands upon thousands of the +Assyrians from the country villages crowded into the +city and into the American missionary compound, till +actually even in the mission school-rooms they were +sleeping three deep—one lot on the floor, another lot +on the seats of the desks and a third on the top of the +desks themselves.</p> + +<p>"Hold on; resist; the help of the British will come," +said Dr. Shedd to the people. "Agha Petros with a +thousand of our men has gone to meet the British and +he will come back with them and will throw back the +Turks."</p> + +<p>The Turks and the Kurds came on from the north; +many of the Armenian and Assyrian men were out +across the plains to the east getting in the harvest; and +no sign of succour came from the south.</p> + + +<h4>II</h4> + +<p>Through the fierce hot days of July the people held +on because Dr. Shedd said that they must; but at last +on the afternoon of July 30th there came over all the +<a name="Page_240" id="Page_240"></a>people a strange irresistible panic. They gathered all +their goods together and piled them in wagons—food, +clothes, saucepans, jewelry, gold, silver, babies, old +women, mothers,—all were huddled and jumbled together.</p> + +<p>The wagons creaked, the oxen lurched down the +roads to the south, the little children cried with hunger +and fright, the boys trudged along rather excited at the +adventure yet rather scared at the awful hullabaloo +and the strange feeling of horror of the cruel Kurdish +horsemen and of the crafty Turk.</p> + +<p>Dr. Shedd made one last vain effort to persuade the +people to hold on to their city; but it was impossible—they +had gone, as it seemed, mad with fright.</p> + +<p>He and his wife went to bed that night but not to +sleep. At two o'clock the telephone bell rang.</p> + +<p>"The Turks and Kurds are advancing; all the people +are leaving," came the message.</p> + +<p>"It is impossible to hold on any longer," said Dr. +Shedd to his wife. "I will go and tell all in the compound. +You get things ready."</p> + +<p>Mrs. Shedd got up and began to collect what was +needed: she packed up food (bread, tea, sugar, nuts, +raisins and so on), a frying pan, a kettle, a saucepan, +water jars, saddles, extra horse-shoes, ropes, lanterns, a +spade and bedding. By 7.30 the baggage wagon and +two Red Cross carts were ready. Dr. Shedd and Mrs. +Shedd got up into the wagon; the driver cried to his +horses and they started.</p> + +<p>As they went out of the city on the south the Turks +and Kurds came raging in on the north. Within two +hours the Turks and Kurds were crashing into houses +<a name="Page_241" id="Page_241"></a>and burning them to the ground; but most of the people +had gone—for Dr. Shedd was practically the last to +leave Urumia.</p> + +<p>Ahead of them were the Armenians and Syrians in +flight. They came to a little bridge—a mass of sticks +with mud thrown over them. Here, and at every +bridge, pandemonium reigned. This is how Mrs. +Shedd describes the scene:</p> + +<p>"The jam at every bridge was indescribable confusion. +Every kind of vehicle that you could imagine—ox +carts, buffalo wagons, Red Cross carts, troikas, +foorgans like prairie schooners, hay-wagons, Russian +phaëtons and many others invented and fitted up for the +occasion. The animals—donkeys, horses, buffaloes, +oxen, cows with their calves, mules and herds of thousands +of sheep and goats."</p> + +<p>All through the day they moved on, at the end of +the procession—Dr. Shedd, planning out how he could +best get his people safely away from the Turks who—he +knew—would soon come pursuing them down the +plain to the mountains. Night fell and they were in a +long line of wagons close to a narrow bridge built by +the Russians across the Baranduz river. They had +come some eighteen miles from Urumia.</p> + +<p>So they lay down in the wagons to try to sleep. But +they could not and at two o'clock in the night they +moved on, crossed the river and drove on for hour +after hour toward the mountains that rose in a wall +before them.</p> + +<p>The poor horses were not strong so the wagon had +to be lightened. Assyrian boys took loads on their +heads and trudged up the rocky mountain road while +<a name="Page_242" id="Page_242"></a>the wagon jolted and groaned as it bumped its way +along. The trail of the mountain pass was littered with +samovars (tea urns), copper kettles, carpets, bedding; +and here and there the body of someone who had died +on the way. At the very top of the pass lay a baby +thrown aside there and just drawing its last breath.</p> + +<p>So for two days they jolted on hardly getting an +hour's sleep. At last at midday on the third day they +left Hadarabad at the south end of Lake Urumia. Two +hours later the sound of booming guns was heard. A +horseman galloped up.</p> + +<p>"The Turks are in Hadarabad," he said. "They are +attacking the rear of the procession."</p> + +<p>"It seemed," said Mrs. Shedd, "as if at any moment +we should hear the screams of those behind, as the +enemy fell upon them."</p> + +<p>The wagons hurried on to the next town called Memetyar +and there Dr. Shedd waited, lightening his own +wagons by throwing away everything that they could +spare—oil, potatoes, charcoal, every box except his +Bible and a small volume of Browning's Poems.</p> + +<p>Then they started again, along a road that was littered +with the discarded goods of the people. Then +they saw on the road-side a little baby girl that had +been left by her parents. She was not a year old and +sat there all alone in a desolate spot. Left to die. Dr. +Shedd looked at his wife and she at him.</p> + +<p>He pulled up the horse and jumped down, picked up +the baby and put her in the wagon. They went along +till they came to a large village. Here they found a +Kurdish mother.</p> + +<p>"Take care of this little girl till we come back," said<a name="Page_243" id="Page_243"></a> +Dr. Shedd, "and here is some money for looking after +her. We will give you more when we come back if she +is well looked after."</p> + + +<h4>III</h4> + +<p>Suddenly cannon were fired from the mountains and +the people in panic threw away their goods and hurried +in a frenzy of fear down the mountain passes. They +passed on to the plain, and then as they were in a village +guns began to be fired. Three hundred Turks and Persians +were attacking under Majdi—Sultana of Urumia. +Dr. Shedd, riding his horse, gathered together some +Armenian and Assyrian men with guns and stayed +with them to help them hold back the enemy, while the +women drove on. He was a good target sitting up there +on his horse; but without thinking of his own danger +he kept his men at it. For he felt like a shepherd with +a great flock of fleeing sheep whom it was his duty to +protect.</p> + +<p>Panic seized the people. Strong men left their old +mothers to die. Mothers dropped their babies and ran.</p> + +<p>"One of my school-girls," Mrs. Shedd says, "afterward +told me how she had left her baby on the bank +and waded with an older child through the river when +the enemy were coming after them. She couldn't carry +both. The memory of her deserted baby is always with +her."</p> + +<p>The line of the refugees stretched for miles along +the road. The enemy fired from behind boulders on +the mountain sides. The Armenians and Syrians fired +back from the road or ran up the mountains to chase +them. It was hopeless to think of driving the enemy +<a name="Page_244" id="Page_244"></a>off but Dr. Shedd's object was to hold them off till +help came. So he went up and down on his horse encouraging +the men; while the bullets whizzed over the +wagons.</p> + +<p>"I feared," said Mrs. Shedd, "that the enemy might +get the better of us and we should have to leave the +carts and run for our lives. While they were plundering +the wagons and the loads we would get away. I +looked about me to see what we might carry. There +was little May, six years old (the daughter of one of +their Syrian teachers) who had unconcernedly curled +herself up on the seat for a nap. I wrapped a little +bread in a cloth, put my glasses in my pocket, and took +the bag of money so that I should be ready on a moment's +notice for Dr. Shedd if they should swoop down +upon us."</p> + +<p>All day long the firing went on from the mountain +side as the tired horses pulled along the rough trail. +The sun began to sink toward the horizon. What +would happen in the darkness?</p> + +<p>Then they saw ahead of them coming from the south +a group of men in khaki. They were nine British +Tommies with three Lewis guns under Captain Savage. +They had come ahead from the main body that had +moved up from Baghdad in order to defend the rear of +the great procession. The little company of soldiers +passed on and the procession moved forward. That +tiny company of nine British Tommies ten miles farther +on was attacked by hundreds of Turks. All day they +held the road, like Horatius on the bridge, till at night +the Cavalry came up and drove off the enemy, and at +last the Shedds reached the British camp.</p> + +<p><a name="Page_245" id="Page_245"></a>"Why are you right at the tail end of the retreat?" +asked one of the Syrian young men who had hurried +forward into safety.</p> + +<p>"I would much rather be there," said Dr. Shedd with +some scorn in his voice, "than like you, leave the unarmed, +the sick, the weak, the women and the children +to the mercy of the enemy."</p> + +<p>He was rejoiced that the British had come.</p> + +<p>"There was," said Mrs. Shedd, "a ring in his voice, +a light in his eyes, a buoyancy in his step that I had +not seen for months."</p> + +<p>He had shepherded his thousands and thousands of +boys and girls, and men and women through the mountains +into the protection of the British squadron of +troops.</p> + + +<h4>IV</h4> + +<p>Later that day Dr. Shedd began to feel the frightful +heat of the August day so exhausting that he had to +lie down in the cart, which had a canvas cover open +at both ends and was therefore much cooler than a tent. +He got more and more feverish. So Mrs. Shedd got +the Assyrian boys to take out the baggage and she made +up a bed for him on the floor of the cart.</p> + +<p>The English doctor was out with the cavalry who +were holding back and dispersing the Turkish force.</p> + +<p>Then a British officer came and said: "We are moving +the camp forward under the protection of the +mountains."</p> + +<p>It was late afternoon. The cart moved forward +into the gathering darkness. Mrs. Shedd crouched +beside her husband on the floor of the cart attending +<a name="Page_246" id="Page_246"></a>to him, expecting the outriders to tell her when they +came to the British Camp.</p> + +<p>For hours the cart rolled and jolted over the rough +mountain roads. At last it stopped, it was so dark +they could not see the road. They were in a gully and +could not go forward.</p> + +<p>"Where is the British camp?" asked Mrs. Shedd.</p> + +<p>"We passed it miles back on the road," was the reply.</p> + +<p>It was a terrible blow: the doctor, the medicines, the +comfort, the nursing that would have helped Dr. Shedd +were all miles away and he was so ill that it was impossible +to drive him back over that rough mountain +track in the inky darkness of the night.</p> + +<p>There was nothing to do but just stay where they +were, send a messenger to the camp for the doctor, and +wait for the morning.</p> + +<p>"Only a few drops of oil were left in the lantern," +Mrs. Shedd tells us, "but I lighted it and looked at Mr. +Shedd. I could see that he was very sick indeed and +asked two of the men to go back for the doctor. It was +midnight before the doctor reached us.</p> + +<p>"The men," Mrs. Shedd continues, "set fire to a +deserted cart left by the refugees and this furnished +fire and light all night. They arranged for guards in +turn and lay down to rest on the roadside. Hour after +hour I crouched in the cart beside my husband massaging +his limbs when cramps attacked him, giving him +water frequently, for while he was very cold to the +touch, he seemed feverish. We heated the hot water +bottle for his feet, and made coffee for him at the blaze; +we had no other nourishment. He got weaker and +weaker, and a terrible fear tugged at my heart.</p> + +<p><a name="Page_247" id="Page_247"></a>"Fifty thousand hunted, terror-stricken refugees had +passed on; the desolate, rocky mountains loomed above +us, darkness was all about us and heaven seemed too +far away for prayer to reach. A deserted baby wailed +all night not far away. When the doctor came he gave +two hypodermic injections and returned to the camp +saying we should wait there for him to catch up to us +in the morning. After the injections Mr. Shedd rested +better but he did not again regain consciousness.</p> + +<p>"When the light began to reveal things, I could see +the awful change in his face, but I could not believe +that he was leaving me. Shortly after light the men +told me that we could not wait as they heard fighting +behind and it was evident the English were attacked, +so in his dying hour we had to take him over the rough, +stony road. After an hour or two Capt. Reed and the +doctor caught up to us. We drew the cart to the side +of the road where soon he drew a few short, sharp +breaths—and I was alone."</p> + +<p>So the British officers, with a little hoe, on the mountain +side dug the grave of this brave American shepherd, +who had given his life in defending the Assyrian +flock from the Turkish wolf. They made the grave just +above the road beside a rock; and on it they sprinkled +dead grass so that it might not be seen and polluted by +the enemy.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>The people Dr. Shedd loved were safe. The enemy, +whose bullets he had braved for day after day, was +defeated by the British soldiers. But the great American +leader, whose tired body had not slept while the +Assyrians and Armenians were being hunted through +<a name="Page_248" id="Page_248"></a>the mountains, lies there dreamless on the mountain +side.</p> + +<p>These are words that broke from the lips of Assyrian +sheiks when they heard of his death:</p> + +<p>"He bore the burdens of the whole nation upon his +shoulders to the last breath of his life.</p> + +<p>"As long as we obeyed his advice and followed his +lead we were safe and prosperous, but when we ceased +to do that destruction came upon us. He was, and ever +will be, the Moses of the Assyrian people."</p> + +<p>He lies there where his heart always was—in that +land in which the Turk, the Assyrian, the Armenian, +the Persian, the Russian and the Arab meet; he is there +waiting for the others who will go out and take up the +work that he has left, the work of carrying to all those +eastern peoples the love of the Christ whom Dr. Shedd +died in serving.</p> + +<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3><p><a name="Page_249" id="Page_249"></a></p> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_63_63" id="Footnote_63_63"></a><a href="#FNanchor_63_63"><span class="label">[63]</span></a> Born January 25th, 1865. Graduated Marietta College, Ohio, 1887, and +Princeton Theological Seminary, 1892.</p></div> +</div> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h3><a name="CHAPTER_XXVI" id="CHAPTER_XXVI"></a>CHAPTER XXVI</h3> + +<h4>AN AMERICAN NURSE IN THE GREAT WAR</h4> + +<p class='center'><i>E.D. Cushman</i></p> + +<p class='center'>(Time 1914-1920)</p> + + +<p><i>The Turk in Bed</i></p> + +<p>The cold, clear sunlight of a winter morning on the +high plateau of Asia Minor shone into the clean, white +ward of a hospital in Konia (the greatest city in the +heart of that land). The hospital in which the events +that I am going to tell in this story happened is supported +by Christian folk in America, and was established +by two American medical missionaries, Dr. William +S. Dodd, and Dr. Wilfred Post, with Miss Cushman, +the head nurse, sharing the general superintendence: +other members of the staff are Haralambos, +their Armenian dispenser and druggist, and Kleoniki, a +Greek nurse trained by Miss Cushman. The author +spent the early spring of 1914 at the hospital in Konia, +when all the people named above were at work there.</p> + +<p>The tinkle of camel-bells as a caravan of laden beasts +swung by, the quick pad-pad of donkeys' hoofs, the +howl of a Turkish dog, the cry of a child—these and +other sounds of the city came through the open window +of the ward.</p> + +<p>On a bed in the corner of the ward lay a bearded man—a +Turk—who lived in this ancient city of Konia (the<a name="Page_250" id="Page_250"></a> +Iconium of St. Paul's day). His brown face and grizzled +beard were oddly framed in the white of the spotless +pillow and sheets.</p> + +<p>His face turned to the door as it opened and the +matron entered. The eyes of the Turk as he lay there +followed her as she walked toward one of her deft, +gentle-handed assistant nurses who, in their neat uniforms +with their olive-brown faces framed in dark +hair, went from bed to bed tending the patients; giving +medicine to a boy here, shaking up a pillow for a sick +man there, taking a patient's temperature yonder. Those +skilled nurses were Armenian girls. The Armenians +are a Christian nation, who have been ruled by the +Turks for centuries and often have been massacred by +them; yet these Armenian girls were nursing the Turks +in the hospital. But the matron of the hospital was not +a Turk, nor an Armenian. She had come four thousand +miles across the sea to heal the Turks and the Armenians +in this land. She was an American.</p> + +<p>The Turk in bed turned his eyes from the nurses to a +picture on the wall. A frown came on his face. He +began to mutter angry words into his beard.</p> + +<p>As a Turk he had always been taught, even as a little +boy, that the great Prophet Mohammed had told them +they must have no pictures of prophets, and he knew +from what he had heard that the picture on the wall +showed the face of a prophet. It was a picture of a +man with a kind, strong face, dressed in garments of +the lands of the East, and wearing a short beard. He +was stooping down healing a little child. It was our +Lord Jesus Christ the Great Physician.</p> + +<p>As Miss Cushman—for that was the name of the +<a name="Page_251" id="Page_251"></a>matron—moved toward his bed, the Turk burst into +angry speech.</p> + +<p>"Have that picture taken down," he said roughly, +pointing to it. She turned to look at the picture and +then back at him, and said words like these: "No, that +is the picture of Jesus, the great Doctor who lived long +ago and taught the people that God is Love. It is because +He taught that, and has called me to follow in +His steps, that I am here to help to heal you."</p> + +<p>But the Turk, who was not used to having women +disobey his commands, again ordered angrily that +the picture should be taken down. But the American +missionary-nurse said gently, but firmly: "No, the +picture must stay there to remind us of Jesus. If you +cannot endure to see the picture there, then if you wish +you may leave the hospital, of course."</p> + +<p>And so she passed on. The Turk lay in his bed and +thought it over. He wished to get well. If the doctors in +this hospital—Dr. Dodd and Dr. Post—did not attend +him, and if the nurses did not give him his medicine, he +would not. He therefore decided to make no more fuss +about the picture. So he lay looking at it, and was +rather surprised to find in a few days that he liked +to see it there, and that he wanted to hear more and +more about the great Prophet-Doctor, Jesus.</p> + +<p>Then he had another tussle of wills with Miss Cushman, +the white nurse from across the seas. It came +about in this way. Women who are Mohammedans +keep their faces veiled, but the Armenian Christian +nurses had their faces uncovered.</p> + +<p>"Surely they are shameless women," he thought in +his heart. "And they are Armenians too—Christian +<a name="Page_252" id="Page_252"></a>infidels!" So he began to treat them rudely. But the +white nurse would not stand that.</p> + +<p>Miss Cushman went and stood by his bed and said: +"I want you to remember that these nurses of mine are +here to help you to get well. They are to you even as +daughters tending their father; and you must behave +to them as a good father to good daughters."</p> + +<p>So the Turk lay in bed and thought about that also. +It took him a long time to take it in, for he had always +been taught to hate the Armenians and to think low +thoughts about their womenfolk. But in the end he +learnt that lesson also.</p> + +<p>At last the Turk got well, left his bed, and went +away. He was so thankful that he was better that he +was ready to do just anything in the world that Miss +Cushman wanted him to do. The days passed on in the +hospital, and always the white nurse from across the +seas and the Armenian nurses tended the Turkish and +other patients, and healed them through the heats of +that summer.</p> + + +<p><i>War and Massacre</i></p> + +<p>As summer came near to its end there broke on the +world the dreadful day when all Europe went to war. +Miss Cushman's colleagues, the American doctors at +the hospital, left Konia for service in the war. Soon +Turkey entered the war. The fury of the Turks +against the Armenians burst out into a flame. You +might see in Konia two or three Turks sitting in the +shadow of a little saddler's shop by the street smoking +their hubble-bubble water-pipes, and saying words like +these:</p> + +<p><a name="Page_253" id="Page_253"></a>"The Armenians are plotting to help the enemies of +Turkey. We shall have to kill them all."</p> + +<p>"Yes, wipe them out—the accursed infidels!"</p> + +<p>The Turks hate the Armenians because their religion, +Islam, teaches them to hate the "infidel" Christians; +they are of a foreign race and foreign religion in countries +ruled by Turks, though the Armenians were there +first, and the Armenians are cleverer business men than +the Turks, who hate to see their subjects richer than +themselves, and hope by massacre to seize Armenian +wealth.</p> + +<p>Yet all the time, as the wounded Turks were sent +from the Gallipoli front back to Konia, the Armenian +nurses in the hospital there were healing them. But the +Turkish Government gave its orders. Vile bands of +Turkish soldiers rushed down on the different cities and +villages of the Armenians.<a name="FNanchor_64_64" id="FNanchor_64_64"></a><a href="#Footnote_64_64" class="fnanchor">[64]</a> One sunny morning a +troop of Turkish soldiers came dashing into a quiet +little Armenian town among the hills. An order was +given. The Turks smashed in the doors of the houses. +A father stood up before his family; a bayonet was +driven through him and soldiers dashed over his dead +body; they looted the house; they smashed up his home; +others seized the mother and the daughters—the mother +had a baby in her arms; the baby was flung on the +ground and then picked up dead on the point of a +bayonet; and, though the mother and daughters were +not bayoneted then, it would have been better to die at +once than to suffer the unspeakable horrors that came +to them.</p> + +<p><a name="Page_254" id="Page_254"></a>And that happened in hundreds of villages and cities +to hundred of thousands of Armenians, while hundreds +of thousands more scattered down the mountain passes +in flight towards Konia.</p> + + +<p><i>The Orphan Boys and Girls</i></p> + +<p>As Miss Cushman and her Armenian nurses looked +out through the windows of the hospital, their hearts +were sad as they saw some of these Armenian refugees +trailing along the road like walking skeletons. What +was to happen to them? It was very dangerous for +anyone to show that they were friends with the Armenians, +but the white matron was as brave as she was +kind; so she went out to do what she could to help +them.</p> + +<p>One day she saw a little boy so thin that the bones +seemed almost to be coming through his skin. He was +very dirty; his hair was all matted together; and there +were bugs and fleas in his clothes and in his hair. The +hospital was so full that not another could be taken in. +But the boy would certainly die if he were not looked +after properly. His father and his mother had both +been slain by the Turks; he did not know where his +brothers were. He was an orphan alone in all the +world.</p> + +<p>Miss Cushman knew Armenian people in Konia, and +she went to one of these homes and told them about +the poor boy and arranged to pay them some money for +the cost of his food. So she made a new home for +him. The next day she found another boy, and then a +girl, and so she went on and on, discovering little +orphan Armenian boys and girls who had nobody to +<a name="Page_255" id="Page_255"></a>care for them, and finding them homes—until she had +over six hundred orphans being cared for. It is certain +that nearly all of them would have died if she had not +looked after them.</p> + +<p>So Miss Cushman gathered the six hundred Armenian +children together into an orphanage, that was +half for the boys and half for the girls. She was a +hundred times better than the "Woman who Lived in a +Shoe," because, though she had so many children, she +<i>did</i> know what to do. She taught them to make nearly +everything for themselves. In the mornings you would +see half the boys figuring away at their sums or learning +to write and read, while the other boys were hammering +and sawing and planing at the carpenter's +bench; cutting leather and sewing it to make shoes for +the other boys and girls; cutting petrol tins up into +sheets to solder into kettles and saucepans; and cutting +and stitching cloth to make clothes. A young American +Red Cross officer who went to see them wrote home, +"The kids look happy and healthy and as clean as a +whistle."</p> + + +<p><i>The People on the Plain</i></p> + +<p>As Miss Cushman looked out again from the hospital +window she saw men coming from the country into the +city jogging along on little donkeys.</p> + +<p>"In the villages all across the plain," they said to her, +"are Armenian boys and girls, and men and women. +They are starving. Many are without homes, wandering +about in rags till they simply lie down on the +ground, worn out, and die."</p> + +<p>Miss Cushman sent word to friends far away in<a name="Page_256" id="Page_256"></a> +America, and they sent food from America to Turkey +in ships, and a million dollars of money to help the +starving children. So Miss Cushman got together her +boys and girls and some other helpers, and soon they +were very busy all day and every day wrapping food +and clothes into parcels.</p> + +<p>Next a caravan of snorting camels came swinging in +to the courtyard and, grumbling and rumbling, knelt +down, to be loaded up. The parcels were done up in +big bales and strapped on to the camels' backs. Then +at a word from the driver the camels rose from their +knees and went lurching out from Konia into the country, +over the rough, rolling tracks, to carry to the people +the food and clothes that would keep them alive.</p> + +<p>The wonderful thing is that these camels were led by +a Turk belonging to the people who hate the Armenians, +yet he was carrying food and clothes to them! Why +did this Turk in Konia go on countless journeys, travelling +over thousands of miles with tens of thousands of +parcels containing wheat for bread and new shirts and +skirts and other clothes for the Armenians whom he +had always hated, and never lose a single parcel?</p> + +<p>Why did he do it?</p> + +<p>This is the reason. Before the war when he was ill +in the hospital Miss Cushman had nursed him with the +help of her Armenian girls, and had made him better; +he was so thankful that he would just run to do anything +that she wished him to do.</p> + + +<p><i>To Stay or not to Stay?</i></p> + +<p>But at last Miss Cushman—worn out with all this +work—fell ill with a terrible fever. For some time it +<a name="Page_257" id="Page_257"></a>was not certain that she would not die of it; for a whole +month she lay sick in great weakness. President Wilson +had at this time broken off relations between America +and Turkey. The Turk now thought of the American +as an enemy; and Miss Cushman was an American. +She was in peril. What was she to do?</p> + +<p>"It is not safe to stay," said her friends. "You will +be practically a prisoner of war. You will be at the +mercy of the Turks. You know what the Turk is—as +treacherous as he is cruel. They can, if they wish, rob +you or deport you anywhere they like. Go now while +the path is open—before it is too late. You are in the +very middle of Turkey, hundreds of miles from any +help. The dangers are terrible."</p> + +<p>As soon as she was well enough Miss Cushman went +to the Turkish Governor of Konia, a bitter Mohammedan +who had organised the massacre of forty thousand +Armenians, to say that she had been asked to go back +to America.</p> + +<p>"What shall you do if I stay?" she asked.</p> + +<p>"I beg you to stay," said the Governor. "You shall +be protected. You need have no fear."</p> + +<p>"Your words are beautiful," she replied. "But if +American and Turkey go to war you will deport me."</p> + +<p>If she stayed she knew the risks under his rule. She +was still weak from her illness. There was no colleague +by her side to help her. There seemed to be +every reason why she should sail away back to America. +But as she sat thinking it over she saw before her +the hospital full of wounded soldiers, the six hundred +orphans who looked to her for help, the plain of a hun<a name="Page_258" id="Page_258"></a>dred +villages to which she was sending food. No one +could take her place.</p> + +<p>Yet she was weak and tired after her illness and, in +America, rest and home, friends and safety called to +her.</p> + +<p>"It was," she wrote later to her friends, "a heavy +problem to know what to do with the orphans and other +helpless people who depended on me for life."</p> + +<p>What would you have done? What do you think +she did? For what reason should she face these perils?</p> + +<p>Not in the heat of battle, but in cool quiet thought, +all alone among enemies, she saw her path and took it. +She did not count her life her own. She was ready to +give her life for her friends of all nations. She decided +to stay in the heart of the enemies' country and serve +her God and the children. Many a man has had the +cross of Honour for an act that called for less calm +courage. That deed showed her to be one of the great +undecorated heroes and heroines of the lonely path.</p> + +<p>So she stayed on.</p> + +<p>From all over the Turkish Empire prisoners were +sent to Konia. There was great confusion in dealing +with them, so the people of Konia asked Miss Cushman +to look after them; they even wrote to the Turkish +Government at Constantinople to tell them to write to +her to invite her to do this work. There was a regular +hue and cry that she should be appointed, because +everyone knew her strong will, her power of organising, +her just treatment, her good judgment, and her loving +heart. So at last she accepted the invitation. Prisoners +of eleven different nationalities she helped—including +British, French, Italian, Russian, Indians and Arabs.<a name="Page_259" id="Page_259"></a> +She arranged for the nursing of the sick, the feeding of +the hungry, the freeing of some from prison.</p> + +<p>She went on right through the war to the end and +beyond the end, caring for her orphans, looking after +the sick in hospital, sending food and clothes to all parts +of the country, helping the prisoners. Without caring +whether they were British or Turkish, Armenian or +Indian, she gave her help to those who needed it. And +because of her splendid courage thousands of boys and +girls and men and women are alive and well, who—without +her—would have starved and frozen to death.</p> + +<p>To-day, in and around Konia (an Army officer who +has been there tells us), the people do not say, "If +Allah wills," but "If Miss Cushman wills!" It is that +officer's way of letting us see how, through her brave +daring, her love, and her hard work, that served everybody, +British, Armenian, Turk, Indian, and Arab, she +has become the uncrowned Queen of Konia, whose +bidding all the people do because she only cares to serve +them, not counting her own life dear to her.</p> + +<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3><p><a name="Page_260" id="Page_260"></a></p> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_64_64" id="Footnote_64_64"></a><a href="#FNanchor_64_64"><span class="label">[64]</span></a> In reading this part of the story to younger children discretion should +be exercised. Some of the details on this page are horrible; but it is +right that older children should realize the evil and how Miss Cushman's +courage faced it.</p></div> +</div> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h3><a name="CHAPTER_XXVII" id="CHAPTER_XXVII"></a>CHAPTER XXVII</h3> + +<h4>ON THE DESERT CAMEL TRAIL</h4> + +<p class='center'><i>Archibald Forder</i></p> + +<p class='center'>(Time of Incident 1900-1901)</p> + + +<p><i>The Boy Who Listened</i></p> + +<p>An eight-year-old schoolboy sat one evening in a +crowded meeting in Salisbury, his eyes wide open with +wonder as he heard a bronzed and bearded man on the +platform telling of his adventures in Africa. The man +was Robert Moffat.</p> + +<p>It was a hot summer night in August (1874). The +walls of the building where the meeting was held +seemed to have disappeared and the boy Archibald +Forder could in imagination see "the plain of a thousand +villages," that Livingstone had seen when this +same Robert Moffat had called him to Africa many +years before. As the boy Archibald heard Moffat he +too wished to go out into the foreign field. Many +things happened as he grew up; but he never forgot that +evening.</p> + +<p>At the age of thirteen he left home and was apprenticed +to the grocery and baking business. In 1888 he +married. At this time he read in a magazine about +missionary work in Kerak beyond the River Jordan—in +Moab among the Arabs—where a young married +man ready to rough it was needed. He sailed with his +<a name="Page_261" id="Page_261"></a>wife for Kerak on September 3, 1891, and left Jerusalem +by camel on September 30, on the four days' +journey across Jordan to Kerak. Three times they +were robbed by brigands on this journey. Mr. Forder +worked there till 1896. He then left and travelled +through America to secure support for an attempt to +penetrate Central Arabia with the first effort to carry +the Gospel of Jesus Christ there.</p> + +<p>The story that follows tells how Forder made his +pioneer journey into the Arabian desert.</p> + + +<p><i>The Adventure into the Desert</i></p> + +<p>Two pack-horses were stamping their hoofs impatiently +outside a house in Jerusalem in the early morning +a week or two before Christmas.<a name="FNanchor_65_65" id="FNanchor_65_65"></a><a href="#Footnote_65_65" class="fnanchor">[65]</a> Inside the house +a man was saying good-bye to his wife and his three +children. He was dressed as an Arab, with a long +scarf wrapped about his head and on the top the black +rope of twisted goats' hair that the Arab puts on when +he becomes a man.</p> + +<p>"Will you be long, Father?" asked his little four-year-old +boy.</p> + +<p>The father could not answer, for he was going out +from Jerusalem for hundreds of miles into the sun and +the thirst of the desert, to the land of the fiercest Arabs—Moslems +whose religion tells them that they must kill +the infidel Christians. It was difficult to tear himself +from his wife and his children and go out to face death +in the desert. But he had come out here to carry to the +Arab the story of Jesus Christ, who Himself had died +on a Cross outside this very city.</p> + +<p><a name="Page_262" id="Page_262"></a>So he kissed his little boy "good-bye," wrenched +himself away, climbed on top of the load on one of +the pack horses and rode out through the gate into the +unknown. He thought as his horses picked their way +down the road from Jerusalem toward Jericho of how +Jesus Christ had been put to death in this very land. +Over his left shoulder he saw the slopes of the Mount +of Olives; down below across the ravine on his right +was the Garden of Gethsemane. In a short time he was +passing through Bethany where Mary and Martha +lived. Down the steep winding road amongst the rocks +he went, and took a cup of cold water at the inn of the +Good Samaritan.</p> + +<p>Then with the Wilderness of Desolation stretching +its tawny tumbled desert hills away to the left, he moved +onward, down and down until the road came out a +thousand feet below sea-level among the huts and sheepfolds +of Jericho, where he slept that night.</p> + +<p>With his face toward the dawn that came up over the +hills of Moab in the distance, he was off again over the +plain with the Dead Sea on his right, across the swiftly +flowing Jordan, and climbing the ravines that lead into +the mountains of Gilead.</p> + +<p>That night he stayed with a Circassian family in a +little house of only one room into which were crowded +his two horses, a mule, two donkeys, a yoke of oxen, +some sheep and goats, a crowd of cocks and hens, four +small dirty children and their father and mother; and +a great multitude of fleas.</p> + +<p>The mother fried him a supper of eggs with bread, +and after it he showed them something that they had +never seen before. He took out of his pack a copy of +<a name="Page_263" id="Page_263"></a>the New Testament translated into Arabic.<a name="FNanchor_66_66" id="FNanchor_66_66"></a><a href="#Footnote_66_66" class="fnanchor">[66]</a> He read +bits out of it and talked to them about the Love of God.</p> + +<p>Early next morning, his saddle-bag stuffed with a +batch of loaves which the woman had baked first thing +in the morning specially for him, he set out again.</p> + +<p>How could a whole batch of loaves be stuffed in one +saddle-bag? The loaves are flat and circular like a +pancake. The dough is spread on a kind of cushion, the +woman takes up the cushion with the dough on it, +pushes it through the opening and slaps the dough on +the inner wall of a big mud oven (out of doors) that +has been heated with a fire of twigs, and in a minute +or two pushes the cushion in again and the cooked +bread falls on to it.</p> + +<p>So Forder climbed up the mountain track till he came +out on the high plain. He saw the desert in front of +him—like a vast rolling ocean of glowing gold it +stretched away and away for close on a thousand miles +eastward to the Persian Gulf. Forder knew that only +here and there in all those blazing, sandy wastes were +oases where men could build their houses round some +well or little stream that soon lost itself in the sand. +All the rest was desert across which man and beast +must hurry or die of thirst. He must follow the camel-tracks +from oasis to oasis, where they could find a well +of water, therefore drink for man and camel, and date-palms.</p> + +<p>So turning north he pressed on<a name="FNanchor_67_67" id="FNanchor_67_67"></a><a href="#Footnote_67_67" class="fnanchor">[67]</a> till on the sixth day +out from Jerusalem the clouds came up with the dawn, +and hail and rain, carried by a biting east wind, beat +<a name="Page_264" id="Page_264"></a>down upon him. Lifting his eyes to the horizon he saw +ahead the sturdy castle and thick walls of the ancient +city of Bosra. Stumbling through the storm, along the +narrow winding streets, he met, to his disgust, a man +whose dress showed that he was a Turkish Government +official. He knew that the Turkish Government would +be against a Christian and a foreigner going into their +land.</p> + +<p>"Who are you?" asked the official, stopping him. +"Where are you from? Where are you going?"</p> + +<p>Forder told him, and the man said. "Come with me. +I will find you and your horses shelter at the Governor's +house." Forder followed him into a large room in the +middle of which on the floor a fire was burning.</p> + +<p>"I must examine all your cases," said the official. +"Get up. Open your boxes."</p> + +<p>"Never," said Forder. "This is not a custom-house."</p> + +<p>"Your boxes are full of powder for arming the Arabs +against the Turkish Government," replied the official.</p> + +<p>"I will not open them," said Forder, "unless you +bring me written orders from the Turkish Governor in +Damascus and from the British Consul."</p> + +<p>Off went the official to consult the headman (the +equivalent of the Mayor) of the city. The headman +came and asked many questions. At last he said:</p> + +<p>"Well, my orders are to turn back all Europeans and +not to let any stay in these parts. However, as you +seem to be almost an Arab, may God go with you and +give you peace."</p> + +<p>So Forder and the headman of the ancient city of +Bosra got talking together. Forder opened his satchel +<a name="Page_265" id="Page_265"></a>and drew out an Arabic New Testament, and together +they read parts of the story of the life of Jesus Christ +and talked about Him till ten o'clock at night. As the +headman rose to go to his own rooms Forder offered +to him, and he gladly took, the copy of the New Testament +in Arabic to read for himself.</p> + + +<p><i>Saved by the Mist</i></p> + +<p>Next morning early, Forder had his horses loaded +and started off with his face to the dawn. The track +now led toward the great Castle of Sulkhund, which +he saw looming up on the horizon twenty-five miles +away, against the dull sky. But mist came down; wind, +rain, and hail buffeted him; the horses, to escape the +hail in their faces, turned aside, and the trail was lost. +Mist hid everything. Forder's compass showed that he +was going south; so he turned east again; but he could +not strike the narrow, broken, stony trail.</p> + +<p>Suddenly smoke could be seen, and then a hamlet of +thirty houses loomed up. Forder opened a door and a +voice came calling, "Welcome!" He went in and saw +some Arabs crouching there out of the rain. A fire of +dried manure was made; the smoke made Forder's eyes +smart and the tears run down his cheeks. He changed +into another man's clothes, and hung his own up in the +smoke to dry.</p> + +<p>"Where are we?" he asked. The men told him that +he was about two and a half hours' ride from the castle +and two hours off the track that he had left in the mist. +The men came in from the other little houses to see the +stranger and sip coffee. Forder again brought out an +Arabic New Testament and found to his surprise that +<a name="Page_266" id="Page_266"></a>some of the men could read quite well and were very +keen on his books. So they bought some of the Bibles +from him. They had no money but paid him in dried +figs, flour and eggs. At last they left him to curl up +on the hard floor; and in spite of the cold and draughts +and the many fleas he soon fell asleep.</p> + +<p>As dawn came up he rose and started off: there (as +he climbed out of the hollow in which the hamlet lay) +he could see the Castle Sulkhund. He knew that the +Turks did not want any foreigner to enter that land of +the Arabs, and that if he were seen, he would certainly +be ordered back. Yet he could not hide, for the path +ran close under the castle, and on the wall strode the +sentry. The plain was open; there was no way by +which he could creep past.</p> + +<p>At last he came to the hill on which the castle stood. +At that very moment a dense mist came down; he +walked along, lost the track, and found it again. Then +there came a challenge from the sentry. He could not +see the sentry or the sentry him. So he called back in +Arabic that he was a friend, and so passed on in the +mist. At last he was out on the open ground beyond +both the castle and the little town by it. Five minutes +later the mist blew away; the sun shone; the castle was +passed, and the open plains lay before him. The mist +had saved him.</p> + +<p>In an hour he came to a large town named Orman on +the edge of the desert sandy plains; and here he stayed +for some weeks. His horses were sent back to Jerusalem. +Instead of towns and villages of huts, he would +now find only the tents of wandering Arabs who had to +keep moving to find bits of sparse growth for their few +<a name="Page_267" id="Page_267"></a>sheep and camels. While he was at Orman he managed +to make friends with many of the Arabs and with +their Chief. He asked the Chief to help him on toward +Kaf—an oasis town across the desert.</p> + +<p>"Don't go," the Chief and his people said, "the Arabs +there are bad: when we go we never let our rifles out of +our hands."</p> + +<p>So the old Chief told him of the dangers of the desert; +death from thirst or from the fiery Arabs of Kaf.</p> + +<p>"I am trusting God to protect and keep me," said +Forder. "I believe He will do so."</p> + +<p>So Forder handed the Chief most of his money to +take care of, and sewed up the rest into the waistband +of his trousers. (It is as safe as a bank to hand your +money to an Arab chief who has entertained you in his +tent. If you have "eaten his salt" he will not betray or +rob you. Absolute loyalty to your guest is the unwritten +law that no true Arab ever breaks.)</p> + + +<p><i>The Caravan of Two Thousand Camels</i></p> + +<p>At last the old Chief very unwillingly called a man, +told him to get a camel, load up Forder's things on it, +and pass him on to the first Arab tent that he found. +Two days passed before they found a group of Bedouin +tents. He was allowed to sleep in a tent: but early +in the morning he woke with a jump. The whole of the +tent had fallen right on him; he crawled out. He saw +the Arab women standing round; they had pulled the +tent down.</p> + +<p>"Why do you do this so early?" he asked.</p> + +<p>"The men," they replied, "have ordered us to move +to another place; they fear to give shelter to a Christian +—<a name="Page_268" id="Page_268"></a>one that is unclean and would cause trouble to come +on us."</p> + +<p>So the tribesmen with their women and flocks made +off, leaving Forder, his guide, and the camel alone in the +desert. That afternoon he found a tent and heard that +a great caravan was expected to pass that night on the +way to Kaf to get salt. Night fell; it was a full moon. +Forder sat with the others in the tent doorway round +the fire. A man ran up to them.</p> + +<p>"I hear the bells of the camels," he said. Quickly +Forder's goods were loaded on a camel. He jumped on +top. He was led off into the open plain. Away across +the desert clear in the moonlight came the dark mass of +the caravan with the tinkle of innumerable bells.</p> + +<p>Arabs galloped ahead of the caravan. They drew up +their horses shouting, "Who are you? What do you +want?" Then came fifty horsemen with long spears in +their hands, rifles slung from their shoulders, swords +hanging from their belts, and revolvers stuck in their +robes. They were guarding the first section made up +of four hundred camels. There were four sections, +each guarded by fifty warriors.</p> + +<p>As they passed, the man with Forder shouted out the +names of friends of his who—he thought—would be in +the caravan. Sixteen hundred camels passed in the +moonlight, but still no answer came. Then the last section +began to pass. The cry went up again of the +names of the men. At last an answering shout was +heard. The men they sought were found. Forder's +guide explained who he was and that he wanted to go +to Kaf. His baggage was swiftly shifted onto another +camel, and in a few minutes he had mounted, and his +<a name="Page_269" id="Page_269"></a>camel was swinging along with two thousand others +into the east.</p> + +<p>For hour after hour the tireless camels swung on and +on, tawny beasts on a tawny desert, under a silver moon +that swam in a deep indigo sky in which a million stars +sparkled. The moon slowly sank behind them; ahead +the first flush of pink lighted the sky; but still they +pushed on. At last at half-past six in the morning they +stopped. Forder flung himself on the sand wrapped in +his <i>abba</i> (his Arab cloak) and in a few seconds was +asleep. In fifteen minutes, however, they awakened +him. Already most of the camels had moved on. From +dawn till noon, from noon under the blazing sun till +half-past five in the afternoon, the camels moved on +and on, "unhasting, unresting." As the camels were +kneeling to be unloaded, a shout went up. Forder looking +up saw ten robbers on horseback on a mound. Like +the wind the caravan warriors galloped after them +firing rapidly, and at last captured them and dragged +them back to the camp.</p> + +<p>"Start again," the command went round, and in +fifteen minutes the two thousand camels swung grumbling +and groaning out on the endless trail of the desert. +The captured Arabs were marched in the centre. All +through the night the caravan went on from moonrise +to moonset, and through the morning from dawn till +ten o'clock—for they dared not rest while the tribe from +whom they had captured the prisoners could get near +them. Then they released the captives and sent them +back, for on the horizon they saw the green palms of +Kaf, the city that they sought.</p> + +<p>The camels had only rested for thirty minutes in +<a name="Page_270" id="Page_270"></a>forty hours.<a name="FNanchor_68_68" id="FNanchor_68_68"></a><a href="#Footnote_68_68" class="fnanchor">[68]</a> With grunts of pleasure they dropped on +their knees and were freed from their loads, and began +hungrily to eat their food.</p> + +<p>Forder leapt down and was so glad to be in Kaf that +he ran into some palm gardens close by and sang +"Praise God from Whom all blessings flow," jumped +for joy, and then washed all the sweat and sand from +himself in a hot spring of sulphur water.</p> + +<p>Lying down on the floor of a little house to which +he was shown, he slept, with his head on his saddlebags, +all day till nearly sunset.</p> + +<p>At sunset a gun was fired. The caravan was starting +on its return journey. Forder's companions on the +caravan came to him.</p> + +<p>"Come back with us," they said. "Why will you +stay with these cursed people of Kaf? They will surely +kill you because you are a Christian."</p> + +<p>It was hard to stay. But no Christian white man had +ever been in that land before carrying the Good News +of Jesus, and Forder had come out to risk his life for +that very purpose. So he stayed.</p> + +<p>What made Forder put his life in peril and stand the +heat, vermin, and hate? Why try to make friends with +these wild bandits? Why care about them at all? He +was a baker in his own country in England and might +have gone on with this work. It was the love of Christ +that gave him the love of all men, and, in obeying His +command to "Go into all the world," he found adventure, +made friends, and left with them the Good News +in the New Testament.</p> + +<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3><p><a name="Page_271" id="Page_271"></a></p> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_65_65" id="Footnote_65_65"></a><a href="#FNanchor_65_65"><span class="label">[65]</span></a> Thursday morning, December 13, 1900.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_66_66" id="Footnote_66_66"></a><a href="#FNanchor_66_66"><span class="label">[66]</span></a> Recall Henry Martyn and Sabat at work on this.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_67_67" id="Footnote_67_67"></a><a href="#FNanchor_67_67"><span class="label">[67]</span></a> Passing Es-Salt (Ramoth Gilead), Gerash and Edrei in Bashan.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_68_68" id="Footnote_68_68"></a><a href="#FNanchor_68_68"><span class="label">[68]</span></a> It took the caravan six days to go back.</p></div> +</div> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h3><a name="CHAPTER_XXVIII" id="CHAPTER_XXVIII"></a>CHAPTER XXVIII</h3> + +<h4>THE FRIEND OF THE ARAB</h4> + +<p class='center'><i>Archibald Forder</i></p> + +<p class='center'>(Date of Incident, 1901)</p> + + +<p><i>The Lone Trail of Friendship</i></p> + +<p>So the two thousand camels swung out on the homeward +trail. Forder now was alone in Kaf.</p> + +<p>"Never," he says, "shall I forget the feeling of loneliness +that came over me as I made my way back to my +room. The thought that I was the only Christian in +the whole district was one that I cannot well describe."</p> + +<p>As Forder passed a group of Arabs he heard them +muttering to one another, "<i>Nisraney</i><a name="FNanchor_69_69" id="FNanchor_69_69"></a><a href="#Footnote_69_69" class="fnanchor">[69]</a>—one of the +cursed ones—the enemy of Allah!" He remembered +that he had been warned that the Arabs of Kaf were +fierce, bigoted Moslems who would slay a Christian at +sight. But he put on a brave front and went to the +Chief's house. There he sat down with the men on the +ground and began to eat with them from a great iron +pot a hot, slimy, greasy savoury, and then sipped coffee +with them.</p> + +<p>"Why have you come here?" they asked him.</p> + +<p>"My desire is," he replied, "to pass on to the Jowf."</p> + +<p><a name="Page_272" id="Page_272"></a>Now the Jowf is the largest town in the Syrian desert—the +most important in all Northern Arabia. From +there camel caravans go north, south, east, and west. +Forder could see how his Arabic New Testaments +would be carried from that city to all the camel tracks +of Arabia.</p> + +<p>"The Jowf is eleven days' camel ride away there," +they said, pointing to the south-east.</p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width:100%;"><a href="images/272.png"><img width="100%" src="images/272.png" alt="FORDER'S JOURNEY TO THE JOWF." title="FORDER'S JOURNEY TO THE JOWF." /></a></div> + +<p>"Go back to Orman," said the Chief, whose name +was Mohammed-el-Bady, "it is at your peril that you +go forward."</p> + +<p>He sent a servant to bring in the headman of his +caravan. "This <i>Nisraney</i> wishes to go with the caravan +to the Jowf," said the Chief. "What do you think +of it?"</p> + +<p>"If I took a Christian to the Jowf," replied the caravan +leader, "I am afraid Johar the Chief there would +kill me for doing such a thing. I cannot do it."</p> + +<p>"Yes," another said, turning to Forder, "if you ever +<a name="Page_273" id="Page_273"></a>want to see the Jowf you must turn Moslem, as no +Christian would be allowed to live there many days."</p> + +<p>"Well," said the Chief, closing the discussion, "I will +see more about this to-morrow."</p> + +<p>As the men sat smoking round the fire Forder pulled +a book out from his pouch. They watched him curiously.</p> + +<p>"Can any of you read?" he asked. There were a +number who could; so Forder opened the book—which +was an Arabic New Testament—at St. John's Gospel, +Chapter III.</p> + +<p>"Will you read?" he asked.</p> + +<p>So the Arab read in his own language this chapter. +As we read the chapter through ourselves it is interesting +to wonder which of the verses would be most easily +understood by the Arabs. When the Arab who was +reading came to the words:</p> + +<p>"God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten +Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not +perish, but have everlasting life," Forder talked to them +telling what the words meant. They listened very +closely and asked many questions. It was all quite new +to them.</p> + +<p>"Will you give me the book?" asked the Arab who +was reading. Forder knew that he would only value it +if he bought it, so he sold it to him for some dates, and +eight or nine men bought copies from him.</p> + +<p>Next day the Chief tried to get other passing Arabs +to conduct Forder to the Jowf, but none would take the +risk. So at last he lent him two of his own servants to +lead him to Ithera—an oasis four hours' camel ride +<a name="Page_274" id="Page_274"></a>across the desert. So away they went across the desert +and in the late afternoon saw the palms of Ithera.</p> + +<p>"We have brought you a Christian," shouted the +servants as they led Forder into a room full of men, and +dumped his goods down on the floor. "We stick him on +to you; do what you can with him."</p> + +<p>"This is neither a Christian, nor a Jew, nor an infidel," +shouted one of the men, "but a pig." He did not +know that Forder understood Arabic.</p> + +<p>"Men," he replied boldly, "I am neither pig, infidel, +nor Jew. I am a Christian, one that worships God, the +same God as you do."</p> + +<p>"If you are a Christian," exclaimed the old Chief, +"go and sit among the cattle!" So Forder went to the +further end of the room and sat between an old white +mare and a camel.</p> + +<p>Soon a man came in, and walking over to Forder put +his hand out and shook his. He sat down by him and, +talking very quietly so that the others should not hear, +said: "Who are you, and from where do you come?"</p> + +<p>"From Jerusalem," said Forder. "I am a Christian +preacher."</p> + +<p>"If you value your life," went on the stranger, "you +will get out of this as quickly as you can, or the men, +who are a bad lot, will kill you. I am a Druze<a name="FNanchor_70_70" id="FNanchor_70_70"></a><a href="#Footnote_70_70" class="fnanchor">[70]</a> but I +pretend to be a Moslem."</p> + +<p>"What sort of a man is the Chief of Ithera?" asked +Forder.</p> + +<p>"Very kind," was the reply. So the friendly stranger +went out. Forder listened carefully to the talk.</p> + +<p><a name="Page_275" id="Page_275"></a>"Let us cut his throat while he is asleep," said one +man.</p> + +<p>"No," said the Chief. "I will not have the blood +of a Christian on my house and town."</p> + +<p>"Let us poison his supper," said another. But the +Chief would not agree.</p> + +<p>"Drive him out into the desert to die of hunger and +thirst," suggested a third. "No," said the Chief, whose +name was Khy-Khevan, "we will leave him till the +morning."</p> + +<p>Forder was then called to share supper with the +others, and afterwards the Chief led him out to the +palm gardens, so that his evil influence should not make +the beasts ill; half an hour later, fearing he would spoil +the date-harvest by his presence, the Chief led him to +a filthy tent where an old man lay with a disease so +horrible that they had thrust him out of the village to +die.</p> + +<p>The next day Forder found that later in the week the +old Chief himself was going to the Jowf. Ripping open +the waistband of his trousers, Forder took out four +French Napoleons (gold coins worth 16s. each) and +went off to the Chief, whom he found alone in his guest +room.</p> + +<p>Walking up to him Forder held out the money saying, +"If you will let me go to the Jowf with you, find +me camel, water and food, I will give you these four +pieces."</p> + +<p>"Give them to me now," said Khy-Khevan, "and we +will start after to-morrow."</p> + +<p>"No," replied Forder, "you come outside, and before +<a name="Page_276" id="Page_276"></a>the men of the place I will give them to you; they must +be witnesses." So in the presence of the men the bargain +was made.</p> + +<p>In the morning the camels were got together—about +a hundred and twenty of them—with eighty men, some +of whom came round Forder, and patting their daggers +and guns said, "These things are for using on Christians. +We shall leave your dead body in the sand if +you do not change your religion and be a follower of +Mohammed."</p> + +<p>After these cheerful encouragements the caravan +started at one o'clock. For four hours they travelled. +Then a shout went up—"Look behind!"</p> + +<p>Looking round Forder saw a wild troop of Bedouin +robbers galloping after them as hard as they could ride. +The camels were rushed together in a group: the men +of Ithera fired on the robbers and went after them. +After a short, sharp battle the robbers made off and the +men settled down where they were for the night, during +which they had to beat off another attack by the +robbers.</p> + +<p>Forder said, "What brave fellows you are!" This +praise pleased them immensely, and they began to be +friendly with him, and forgot that they had meant to +leave his dead body in the desert, though they still told +him he would be killed at the Jowf. For three days +they travelled on without finding any water, and even +on the fourth day they only found it by digging up the +sand with their fingers till they had made a hole over +six feet deep where they found some.</p> + +<p><a name="Page_277" id="Page_277"></a><i>In the Heart of the Desert</i></p> + +<p>At last Forder saw the great mass of the old castle, +"no one knows how old," that guards the Jowf<a name="FNanchor_71_71" id="FNanchor_71_71"></a><a href="#Footnote_71_71" class="fnanchor">[71]</a> that +great isolated city with its thousands of lovely green +date palms in the heart of the tremendous ocean of +desert.</p> + +<p>Men, women and children came pouring out to meet +their friends: for a desert city is like a port to which the +wilderness is the ocean, and the caravan of camels is +the ship, and the friends go down as men do to the harbour +to meet friends from across the sea.</p> + +<p>"May Allah curse him!" they cried, scowling, when +they heard that a Christian stranger was in the caravan. +"The enemy of Allah and the prophet! Unclean! Infidel!"</p> + +<p>Johar, the great Chief of the Jowf, commanded that +Forder should be brought into his presence, and proceeded +to question him:</p> + +<p>"Did you come over here alone?"</p> + +<p>"Yes," he answered.</p> + +<p>"Were you not afraid?"</p> + +<p>"No," he replied.</p> + +<p>"Have you no fear of anyone?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, I fear God and the devil."</p> + +<p>"Do you not fear me?"</p> + +<p>"No."</p> + +<p>"But I could cut your head off."</p> + +<p>"Yes," answered Forder, "I know you could. But +you wouldn't treat a guest thus."</p> + +<p>"You must become a follower of Mohammed," said<a name="Page_278" id="Page_278"></a> +Johar, "for we are taught to kill Christians. Say to +me, 'There is no God but God and Mohammed is His +prophet' and I will give you wives and camels and a +house and palms." Everybody sat listening for the +answer. Forder paused and prayed in silence for a few +seconds, for he knew that on his answer life or death +would depend.</p> + +<p>"Chief Johar," said Forder, "if you were in the land +of the Christians, the guest of the monarch, and if the +ruler asked you to become a Christian and give up your +religion would you do it?"</p> + +<p>"No," said Johar proudly, "not if the ruler had my +head cut off."</p> + +<p>"Secondly," he said to Johar, "which do you think +it best to do, to please God or to please man?"</p> + +<p>"To please God," said the Chief.</p> + +<p>"Johar," said Forder, "I am just like you; I cannot +change my religion, not if you cut off two heads; and I +must please God by remaining a Christian.... I cannot +do what you ask me. It is impossible." Johar rose +up and went out much displeased.</p> + + +<p><i>"Kill the Christian!"</i></p> + +<p>One day soon after this there was fierce anger because +the mud tower in which Johar was sitting fell in, +and Johar was covered with the debris. "This is the +Christian's doing," someone cried. "He looked at the +tower and bewitched it, so it has fallen." At once the +cry was raised, "Kill the Christian—kill him—kill +him! The Christian! The Christian!"</p> + +<p>An angry mob dashed toward Forder with clubs, +daggers and revolvers. He stood still awaiting them.<a name="Page_279" id="Page_279"></a> +They were within eighty yards when, to his own amazement, +three men came from behind him, and standing +in front of Forder between him and his assailants pulled +out their revolvers and shouted, "Not one of you come +near this Christian!" The murderous crowd halted. +Forder slowly walked backwards toward his room, his +defenders doing the same, and the crowd melted away.</p> + +<p>He then turned to his three defenders and said, +"What made you come to defend me as you did?"</p> + +<p>"We have been to India," they answered, "and we +have seen the Christians there, and we know that they +do no harm to any man. We have also seen the effect +of the rule of you English in that land and in Egypt, +and we will always help Christians when we can. We +wish the English would come here; Christians are better +than Moslems."</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>Other adventures came to Forder in the Jowf, and he +read the New Testament with some of the men who +bought the books from him to read. At last Khy-Khevan, +the Chief of Ithera, who had brought Forder +to the Jowf, said that he must go back, and Forder, +who had now learned what he wished about the Jowf, +and had put the books of the Gospel into the hands of +the men, decided to return to his wife and boys in +Jerusalem to prepare to bring them over to live with +him in that land of the Arabs. So he said farewell to +the Chief Johar, and rode away on a camel with Khy-Khevan. +Many things he suffered—from fever and +hunger, from heat and thirst, and vermin. But at last +he reached Jerusalem once more; and his little four-year-old +boy clapped hands with joy as he saw his +<a name="Page_280" id="Page_280"></a>father come back after those long months of peril and +hardship.</p> + +<p>Fifteen hundred miles he had ridden on horse and +camel, or walked. Two hundred and fifty Arabic Gospels +and Psalms had been sold to people who had never +seen them before. Hundreds of men and women had +heard him tell them of the love of Jesus. And friends +had been made among Arabs all over those desert +tracks, to whom he could go back again in the days that +were to come. The Arabs of the Syrian Desert all think +of Archibald Forder to-day as their friend and listen to +him because he has proved to them that he wishes them +well.</p> + +<p><a name="Page_281" id="Page_281"></a></p> + + +<div class='center'> +<table border="1" cellpadding="4" width="80%" cellspacing="0" summary=""> +<tr><td align='left'>"SEEING THEN THAT WE ARE COMPASSED +ABOUT WITH SO GREAT A CLOUD +OF WITNESSES, LET US LAY ASIDE EVERY +WEIGHT AND THE SIN WHICH DOTH SO +EASILY BESET US, AND LET US RUN +WITH PATIENCE THE RACE THAT IS SET +BEFORE US, LOOKING UNTO JESUS, THE +AUTHOR AND PERFECTER OF OUR FAITH, +WHO FOR THE JOY THAT WAS SET +BEFORE HIM ENDURED THE CROSS, +DESPISING THE SHAME."</td></tr> +</table><br /></div> + +<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_69_69" id="Footnote_69_69"></a><a href="#FNanchor_69_69"><span class="label">[69]</span></a> That is <i>Nasarene</i> (or <i>Christian</i>).</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_70_70" id="Footnote_70_70"></a><a href="#FNanchor_70_70"><span class="label">[70]</span></a> The Druzes are a separate nation and sect whose religion is a kind +of Islam mixed with relics of old Eastern faiths, <i>e.g.</i>, sun-worship.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_71_71" id="Footnote_71_71"></a><a href="#FNanchor_71_71"><span class="label">[71]</span></a> The Jowf is a large oasis town with about 40,000 inhabitants, about +250 miles from the edge of the desert. The water supply is drawn up by +camels from deep down in the earth.</p></div> + +</div> + + + + + + + +<pre> + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's The Book of Missionary Heroes, by Basil Mathews + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE BOOK OF MISSIONARY HEROES *** + +***** This file should be named 16657-h.htm or 16657-h.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/1/6/6/5/16657/ + +Produced by Janet Blenkinship and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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Thus, we do not necessarily +keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition. + +Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility: + + https://www.gutenberg.org + +This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm, +including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary +Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to +subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks. + +*** END: FULL LICENSE *** + + + +</pre> + +</body> +</html> diff --git a/16657-h/images/272.png b/16657-h/images/272.png Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..226a723 --- /dev/null +++ b/16657-h/images/272.png diff --git a/16657.txt b/16657.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..662e57f --- /dev/null +++ b/16657.txt @@ -0,0 +1,8428 @@ +Project Gutenberg's The Book of Missionary Heroes, by Basil Mathews + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: The Book of Missionary Heroes + +Author: Basil Mathews + +Release Date: September 5, 2005 [EBook #16657] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE BOOK OF MISSIONARY HEROES *** + + + + +Produced by Janet Blenkinship and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net + + + + + +[Transcriber's note: Some Footnotes in this text contain special +characters, including a, e, and o with superior macron, represented by +[=a], [=e], and [=o], and a and u with superior breve, represented by +[)a] and [)u], to indicate pronunciation of native-language words.] + + + + +THE BOOK OF MISSIONARY HEROES + +BY + +BASIL MATHEWS, M.A. + +_Author of "The Argonauts of Faith," +"The Riddle of Nearer Asia," +etc._ + + +NEW YORK + +GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY + +_Copyright, 1922,_ + +_By George H. Doran Company_ + + + +PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA + + + + +CONTENTS + + PAGE + +PROLOGUE THE RELAY RACE 9 + +BOOK I: THE PIONEERS + + CHAPTER + I THE HERO OF THE LONG TRAIL (_St. Paul_) 19 + II THE MEN ON THE SHINGLE BEACH (_Wilfrid of Sussex_) 30 + III THE KNIGHT OF A NEW CRUSADE (_Raymond Lull_) 36 + IV FRANCIS COEUR-DE-LION (_St. Francis of Assisi_) 47 + +BOOK II: THE ISLAND ADVENTURERS + + V THE ADVENTUROUS SHIP (_The Duff_) 65 + VI THE ISLAND BEACON FIRES (_Papeiha_) 72 + VII THE DAYBREAK CALL (_John Williams_) 80 + VIII KAPIOLANI, THE HEROINE OF HAWAII (_Kapiolani_) 86 + IX THE CANOE OF ADVENTURE (_Elikana_) 92 + X THE ARROWS OF SANTA CRUZ (_Patteson_) 103 + XI FIVE KNOTS IN A PALM LEAF (_Patteson_) 108 + XII THE BOY OF THE ADVENTUROUS HEART (_Chalmers_) 113 + XIII THE SCOUT OF PAPUA (_Chalmers_) 118 + XIV A SOUTH SEA SAMARITAN (_Ruatoka_) 126 + +BOOK III: THE PATHFINDERS OF AFRICA + + XV THE MAN WHO WOULD GO ON (_Livingstone_) 131 + XVI A BLACK PRINCE OF AFRICA (_Khama_) 136 + XVII THE KNIGHT OF THE SLAVE GIRLS (_George Grenfell_) 150 + XVIII "A MAN WHO CAN TURN HIS HAND TO ANYTHING" (_Mackay_) 158 + XIX THE ROADMAKER (_Mackay_) 164 + XX FIGHTING THE SLAVE TRADE (_Mackay_) 172 + XXI THE BLACK APOSTLE OF THE LONELY LAKE (_Shomolakae_) 186 + XXII THE WOMAN WHO CONQUERED CANNIBALS (_Mary Slessor_) 196 + +BOOK IV: HEROINES AND HEROES OF PLATEAU AND DESERT + + XXIII SONS OF THE DESERT (_Abdallah and Sabat_) 213 + XXIV A RACE AGAINST TIME (_Henry Martyn_) 224 + XXV THE MOSES OF THE ASSYRIANS (_Dr. Shedd_) 236 + XXVI AN AMERICAN NURSE IN THE GREAT WAR (_E.D. Cushman_) 249 + XXVII ON THE DESERT CAMEL TRAIL (_Archibald Forder_) 260 + XXVIII THE FRIEND OF THE ARAB (_Archibald Forder_) 271 + + + + +THE BOOK OF MISSIONARY HEROES + + + + +PROLOGUE + +THE RELAY-RACE + + +The shining blue waters of two wonderful gulfs were busy with fishing +boats and little ships. The vessels came under their square sails and +were driven by galley-slaves with great oars. + +A Greek boy standing, two thousand years ago, on the wonderful +mountain of the Acro-Corinth that leaps suddenly from the plain above +Corinth to a pinnacle over a thousand feet high, could see the boats +come sailing from the east, where they hailed from the Piraeus and +Ephesus and the marble islands of the AEgean Sea. Turning round he +could watch them also coming from the West up the Gulf of Corinth +from the harbours of the Gulf and even from the Adriatic Sea and +Brundusium. + +In between the two gulfs lay the Isthmus of Corinth to which the men +on the ships were sailing and rowing. + +The people were all in holiday dress for the great athletic sports +were to be held on that day and the next,--the sports that drew, in +those ancient days, over thirty thousand Greeks from all the country +round; from the towns on the shores of the two gulfs and from the +mountain-lands of Greece,--from Parnassus and Helicon and Delphi, +from Athens and the villages on the slopes of Hymettus and even from +Sparta. + +These sports, which were some of the finest ever held in the whole +world, were called--because they were held on this isthmus--the +Isthmian Games. + +The athletes wrestled. They boxed with iron-studded leather +straps over their knuckles. They fought lions brought across the +Mediterranean (the Great Sea as they called it) from Africa, and +tigers carried up the Khyber Pass across Persia from India. They flung +spears, threw quoits and ran foot-races. Amid the wild cheering of +thirty thousand throats the charioteers drove their frenzied horses, +lathered with foam, around the roaring stadium. + +One of the most beautiful of these races has a strange hold on the +imagination. It was a relay-race. This is how it was run. + +Men bearing torches stood in a line at the starting point. Each man +belonged to a separate team. Away in the distance stood another row of +men waiting. Each of these was the comrade of one of those men at the +starting point. Farther on still, out of sight, stood another row and +then another and another. + +At the word "Go" the men at the starting point leapt forward, their +torches burning. They ran at top speed towards the waiting men and +then gasping for breath, each passed his torch to his comrade in the +next row. He, in turn, seizing the flaming torch, leapt forward and +dashed along the course toward the next relay, who again raced on and +on till at last one man dashed past the winning post with his torch +burning ahead of all the others, amid the applauding cheers of the +multitude. + +The Greeks, who were very fond of this race, coined a proverbial +phrase from it. Translated it runs: + +"Let the torch-bearers hand on the flame to the others" or "Let those +who have the light pass it on." + + * * * * * + +That relay-race of torch-bearers is a living picture of the wonderful +relay-race of heroes who, right through the centuries, have, with +dauntless courage and a scorn of danger and difficulty, passed through +thrilling adventures in order to carry the Light across the continents +and oceans of the world. + +The torch-bearers! The long race of those who have borne, and still +carry the torches, passing them on from hand to hand, runs before us. +A little ship puts out from Seleucia, bearing a man who had caught +the fire in a blinding blaze of light on the road to Damascus. Paul +crosses the sea and then threads his way through the cities of Cyprus +and Asia Minor, passes over the blue AEgean to answer the call from +Macedonia. We see the light quicken, flicker and glow to a steady +blaze in centre after centre of life, till at last the torch-bearer +reaches his goal in Rome. + + "Yes, without cheer of sister or of daughter, + Yes, without stay of father or of son, + Lone on the land and homeless on the water + Pass I in patience till the work be done." + +Centuries pass and men of another age, taking the light that Paul had +brought, carry the torch over Apennine and Alp, through dense forests +where wild beasts and wilder savages roam, till they cross the North +Sea and the light reaches the fair-haired Angles of Britain, on whose +name Augustine had exercised his punning humour, when he said, "Not +Angles, but Angels." From North and South, through Columba and Aidan, +Wilfred of Sussex and Bertha of Kent, the light came to Britain. + +"Is not our life," said the aged seer to the Mercian heathen king as +the Missionary waited for permission to lead them to Christ, "like a +sparrow that flies from the darkness through the open window into this +hall and flutters about in the torchlight for a few moments to fly out +again into the darkness of the night. Even so we know not whence our +life comes nor whither it goes. This man can tell us. Shall we not +receive his teaching?" So the English, through these torch-bearers, +come into the light. + +The centuries pass by and in 1620 the little _Mayflower_, bearing +Christian descendants of those heathen Angles--new torch-bearers, +struggles through frightful tempests to plant on the American +Continent the New England that was indeed to become the forerunner of +a New World.[1] + +A century and a half passes and down the estuary of the Thames creeps +another sailing ship. + +The Government officer shouts his challenge: + +"What ship is that and what is her cargo?" + +"The _Duff_," rings back the answer, "under Captain Wilson, bearing +Missionaries to the South Sea." + +The puzzled official has never heard of such beings! But the little +ship passes on and after adventures and tempests in many seas at last +reaches the far Pacific. There the torch-bearers pass from island +to island and the light flames like a beacon fire across many a blue +lagoon and coral reef. + +One after another the great heroes sail out across strange seas and +penetrate hidden continents each with a torch in his hand. + +Livingstone, the lion-hearted pathfinder in Africa, goes out as the +fearless explorer, the dauntless and resourceful missionary, faced by +poisoned arrows and the guns of Arabs and marched with only his black +companions for thousands of miles through marsh and forest, over +mountain pass and across river swamps, in loneliness and hunger, often +with bleeding feet, on and on to the little hut in old Chitambo's +village in Ilala, where he crossed the river. Livingstone is the +Coeur-de-Lion of our Great Crusade. + +John Williams, who, in his own words, could "never be content with +the limits of a single reef," built with his own hands and almost +without any tools on a cannibal island the wonderful little ship _The +Messenger of Peace_ in which he sailed many thousands of miles from +island to island across the Pacific Ocean. + +These are only two examples of the men whose adventures are more +thrilling than those of our story books and yet are absolutely true, +and we find them in every country and in each of the centuries. + +So--as we look across the ages we + + "See the race of hero-spirits + Pass the torch from hand to hand." + +In this book the stories of a few of them are told as yarns to boys +and girls round a camp-fire. Every one of the tales is historically +true, and is accurate in detail. + +In that ancient Greek relay-race the prize to each winner was simply a +wreath of leaves cut by a priest with a golden knife from trees in the +sacred grove near the Sea,--the grove where the Temple of Neptune, the +god of the Ocean, stood. It was just a crown of wild olive that would +wither away. Yet no man would have changed it for its weight in gold. + +For when the proud winner in the race went back to his little city, +set among the hills, with his already withering wreath, all the people +would come and hail him a victor and wave ribbons in the air. A great +sculptor would carve a statue of him in imperishable marble and it +would be set up in the city. And on the head of the statue of the +young athlete was carved a wreath. + +In the great relay-race of the world many athletes--men and +women--have won great fame by the speed and skill and daring with +which they carried forward the torch and, themselves dropping in their +tracks, have passed the flame on to the next runner; Paul, Francis, +Penn, Livingstone, Mackay, Florence Nightingale, and a host of others. +And many who have run just as bravely and swiftly have won no fame +at all though their work was just as great. But the fame or the +forgetting really does not matter. The fact is that the race is still +running; _it has not yet been won_. Whose team will win? That is what +matters. + +The world is the stadium. Teams of evil run rapidly and teams of good +too. + +The great heroes and heroines whose story is told in this book have +run across the centuries over the world to us. Some of them are alive +to-day, as heroic as those who have gone. But all of them say the same +thing to us of the new world who are coming after them: + + "Take the torch." + +The greatest of them all, when he came to the very end of his days, as +he fell and passed on the Torch to others, said: + + "I have run my course." + +But to us who are coming on as Torch-bearers after him he spoke in +urgent words--written to the people at Corinth where the Isthmian +races were run: + + "Do you not know that they which run in a race all run, but one wins + the prize? + So run, that ye may be victors." + +FOOTNOTES: + +[Footnote 1: See "The Argonauts of Faith" by Basil Mathews. (Doran.)] + + + + +Book One: THE PIONEERS + + + + +CHAPTER I + +THE HERO OF THE LONG TRAIL + +_St. Paul_ + +(Dates, b. A.D. 6, d. A.D. 67[2]) + + +_The Three Comrades._ + +The purple shadows of three men moved ahead of them on the tawny +stones of the Roman road on the high plateau of Asia Minor one bright, +fresh morning.[3] They had just come out under the arched gateway +through the thick walls of the Roman city of Antioch-in-Pisidia. The +great aqueduct of stone that brought the water to the city from the +mountains on their right[4] looked like a string of giant camels +turned to stone. + +Of the three men, one was little more than a boy. He had the oval face +of his Greek father and the glossy dark hair of his Jewish mother. +The older men, whose long tunics were caught up under their girdles +to give their legs free play in walking, were brown, grizzled, sturdy +travellers. They had walked a hundred leagues together from the +hot plains of Syria, through the snow-swept passes of the Taurus +mountains, and over the sun-scorched levels of the high plateau.[5] +Their muscles were as tireless as whipcord. Their courage had not +quailed before robber or blizzard, the night yells of the hyena or the +stones of angry mobs. + +For the youth this was his first adventure out into the glorious, +unknown world. He was on the open road with the glow of the sun on his +cheek and the sting of the breeze in his face; a strong staff in his +hand; with his wallet stuffed with food--cheese, olives, and some +flat slabs of bread; and by his side his own great hero, Paul. Their +sandals rang on the stone pavement of the road which ran straight as +a strung bowline from the city, Antioch-in-Pisidia, away to the west. +The boy carried over his shoulder the cloak of Paul, and carried that +cloak as though it had been the royal purple garment of the Roman +Emperor himself instead of the worn, faded, travel-stained cloak of a +wandering tent-maker. + +The two older men, whose names were Paul the Tarsian and Silas, had +trudged six hundred miles. Their younger companion, whose name was +"Fear God," or Timothy as we say, with his Greek fondness for perfect +athletic fitness of the body, proudly felt the taut, wiry muscles +working under his skin. + +On they walked for day after day, from dawn when the sun rose behind +them to the hour when the sun glowed over the hills in their faces. +They turned northwest and at last dropped down from the highlands of +this plateau of Asia Minor, through a long broad valley, until they +looked down across the Plain of Troy to the bluest sea in the world. + +Timothy's eyes opened with astonishment as he looked down on such a +city as he had never seen--the great Roman seaport of Troy. The marble +Stadium, where the chariots raced and the gladiators fought, gleamed +in the afternoon light. + +The three companions could not stop long to gaze. They swung easily +down the hill-sides and across the plain into Troy, where they took +lodgings. + +They had not been in Troy long when they met a doctor named Luke. We +do not know whether one of them was ill and the doctor helped him; we +do not know whether Doctor Luke (who was a Greek) worshipped, when +he met them, AEsculapius, the god of healing of the Greek people. The +doctor did not live in Troy, but was himself a visitor. + +"I live across the sea," Luke told his three friends--Paul, Silas and +Timothy--stretching his hand out towards the north. "I live," he would +say proudly, "in the greatest city of all Macedonia--Philippi. It is +called after the great ruler Philip of Macedonia." + +Then Paul in his turn would be sure to tell Doctor Luke what it was +that had brought him across a thousand miles of plain and mountain +pass, hill and valley, to Troy. This is how he would tell the story in +such words as he used again and again: + +"I used to think," he said, "that I ought to do many things to oppose +the name of Jesus of Nazareth. I had many of His disciples put into +prison and even voted for their being put to death. I became so +exceedingly mad against them that I even pursued them to foreign +cities. + +"Then as I was journeying[6] to Damascus, with the authority of the +chief priests themselves, at mid-day I saw on the way a light from the +sky, brighter than the blaze of the sun, shining round about me and my +companions. And, as we were all fallen on to the road, I heard a voice +saying to me: + +"'Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me? It is hard for you to kick +against the goad.' + +"And I said, 'Who are you, Lord?' + +"The answer came: 'I am Jesus, whom you persecute.'" + +Then Paul went on: + +"I was not disobedient to the heavenly vision; but I told those in +Damascus and in Jerusalem and in all Judaea, aye! and the foreign +nations also, that they should repent and turn to God. + +"Later on," said Paul, "I fell into a trance, and Jesus came again +to me and said, 'Go, I will send you afar to the Nations.' That (Paul +would say to Luke) is why I walk among perils in the city; in perils +in the wilderness; in perils in the sea; in labour and work; in hunger +and thirst and cold, to tell people everywhere of the love of God +shown in Jesus Christ."[7] + + +_The Call to Cross the Sea._ + +One night, after one of these talks, as Paul was asleep in Troy, he +seemed to see a figure standing by him. Surely it was the dream-figure +of Luke, the doctor from Macedonia, holding out his hands and pleading +with Paul, saying, "Come over into Macedonia and help us." + +Now neither Paul nor Silas nor Timothy had ever been across the sea +into the land that we now call Europe. But in the morning, when Paul +told his companions about the dream that he had had, they all agreed +that God had called them to go and deliver the good news of the +Kingdom to the people in Luke's city of Philippi and in the other +cities of Macedonia. + +So they went down into the busy harbour of Troy, where the singing +sailor-men were bumping bales of goods from the backs of camels into +the holds of the ships, and they took a passage in a little coasting +ship. She hove anchor and was rowed out through the entrance between +the ends of the granite piers of the harbour. The seamen hoisting the +sails, the little ship went gaily out into the AEgean Sea. + +All day they ran before the breeze and at night anchored under the lee +of an island. At dawn they sailed northward again with a good wind, +till they saw land. Behind the coast on high ground the columns of +a temple glowed in the sunlight. They ran into a spacious bay and +anchored in the harbour of a new city--Neapolis as it was called--the +port of Philippi. + +Landing from the little ship, Paul, Silas, Timothy and Luke climbed +from the harbour by a glen to the crest of the hill, and then on, for +three or four hours of hard walking, till their sandals rang on +the pavement under the marble arch of the gate through the wall of +Philippi. + +_Flogging and Prison._ + +As Paul and his friends walked about in the city they talked with +people; for instance, with a woman called Lydia, who also had come +across the sea from Asia Minor where she was born. She and her +children and slaves all became Christians. So the men and women of +Philippi soon began to talk about these strange teachers from the +East. One day Paul and Silas met a slave girl dressed in a flowing, +coloured tunic. She was a fortune-teller, who earned money for her +masters by looking at people and trying to see at a glance what they +were like so that she might tell their fortunes. The fortune-telling +girl saw Paul and Silas going along, and she stopped and called out +loud so that everyone who went by might hear: "These men are the +slaves of the Most High God. They tell you the way of Salvation." + +The people stood and gaped with astonishment, and still the girl +called out the same thing, until a crowd began to come round. Then +Paul turned round and with sternness in his voice spoke to the evil +spirit in the girl and said: "In the Name of Jesus Christ, I order you +out of her." + +From that day the girl lost her power to tell people's fortunes, so +that the money that used to come to her masters stopped flowing. They +were very angry and stirred up everybody to attack Paul and Silas. A +mob collected and searched through the streets until they found them. +Then they clutched hold of their arms and robes, shouting: "To the +praetors! To the praetors!" The praetors were great officials who sat in +marble chairs in the Forum, the central square of the city. + +The masters of the slave girl dragged Paul and Silas along. At +their heels came the shouting mob and when they came in front of the +praetors, the men cried out: + +"See these fellows! Jews as they are, they are upsetting everything in +the city. They tell people to take up customs that are against the Law +for us as Romans to accept." + +"Yes! Yes!" yelled the crowd. "Flog them! Flog them!" + +The praetors, without asking Paul or Silas a single question as to +whether this was true, or allowing them to make any defence, were +fussily eager to show their Roman patriotism. Standing up they gave +their orders: + +"Strip them, flog them." + +The slaves of the praetors seized Paul and Silas and took their robes +from their backs. They were tied by their hands to the whipping-post. +The crowd gathered round to see the foreigners thrashed. + +The lictors--that is the soldier-servants of the praetors--untied their +bundles of rods. Then each lictor brought down his rod with cruel +strokes on Paul and Silas. The rods cut into the flesh and the blood +flowed down. + +Then their robes were thrown over their shoulders, and the two men, +with their tortured backs bleeding, were led into the black darkness +of the cell of the city prison; shackles were snapped on to their +arms, and their feet were clapped into stocks. Their bodies ached; the +other prisoners groaned and cursed; the filthy place stank; sleep was +impossible. + +But Paul and Silas did not groan. They sang the songs of their own +people, such as the verses that Paul had learned--as all Jewish +children did--when he was a boy at school. For instance-- + + God is our refuge and strength, + A very present help in trouble. + Therefore will we not fear, though the earth do change, + And though the mountains be moved in the heart of the seas; + Though the waters thereof roar and be troubled, + Though the mountains shake with the swelling thereof. + +As they sang there came a noise as though the mountains really were +shaking. The ground rocked; the walls shook; the chains were loosened +from the stones; the stocks were wrenched apart; their hands and feet +were free; the heavy doors crashed open. It was an earthquake. + +The jailor leapt to the entrance of the prison. The moonlight shone on +his sword as he was about to kill himself, thinking his prisoners had +escaped. + +"Do not harm yourself," shouted Paul. "We are all here." + +"Torches! Torches!" yelled the jailor. + +The jailor, like all the people of his land, believed that earthquakes +were sent by God. He thought he was lost. He turned to Paul and Silas +who, he knew, were teachers about God. + +"Sirs," he said, falling in fear on the ground, "what must I do to be +saved?" + +"Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ," they replied, "and you and your +household will all be saved." + +The jailor's wife then brought some oil and water, and the jailor +washed the poor wounded backs of Paul and Silas and rubbed healing oil +into them. + +The night was now passing and the sun began to rise. There was a tramp +of feet. The lictors who had thrashed Paul and Silas marched to +the door of the prison with an order to free them. The jailor was +delighted. + +"The praetors have sent to set you free," he said. "Come out then and +go in peace." + +He had the greatest surprise in his life when, instead of going, Paul +turned and said: + +"No, indeed! The praetors flogged us in public in the Forum and without +a trial--flogged Roman citizens! They threw us publicly into prison, +and now they are going to get rid of us secretly. Let the praetors come +here themselves and take us out!" + +Surely it was the boldest message ever sent to the powerful praetors. +But Paul knew what he was doing, and when the Roman praetors heard the +message they knew that he was right. They would be ruined if it were +reported at Rome that they had publicly flogged Roman citizens without +trial. + +Their prisoner, Paul, was now their judge. They climbed down from +their marble seats and walked on foot to the prison to plead with Paul +and Silas to leave the prison and not to tell against them what had +happened. + +"Will you go away from the city?" they asked. "We are afraid of other +riots." + +So Paul and Silas consented. But they went to the house where Lydia +lived--the home in which they had been staying in Philippi. + +Paul cheered up the other Christian folk--Lydia and Luke and +Timothy--and told them how the jailor and his wife and family had all +become Christians. + +"Keep the work of spreading the message here in Philippi going +strongly," said Paul to Luke and Timothy. "Be cheerfully prepared for +trouble." And then he and Silas, instead of going back to their own +land, went out together in the morning light of the early winter of +A.D. 50, away along the Western road over the hills to face perils +in other cities in order to carry the Good News to the people of the +West. + + +_The Trail of the Hero-Scout._ + +So Paul the dauntless pioneer set his brave face westwards, following +the long trail across the Roman Empire--the hero-scout of Christ. +Nothing could stop him--not scourgings nor stonings, prison nor +robbers, blizzards nor sand-storms. He went on and on till at last, as +a prisoner in Rome, he laid his head on the block of the executioner +and was slain. These are the brave words that we hear from him as he +came near to the end: + + +-----------------------------+ + | I HAVE FOUGHT A GOOD FIGHT; | + | I HAVE RUN MY COURSE; | + | I HAVE KEPT THE FAITH. | + +-----------------------------+ + +Long years afterward, men who were Christians in Rome carried the +story of the Kingdom of Jesus Christ across Europe to some savages in +the North Sea Islands--called Britons. Paul handed the torch from +the Near East to the people in Rome. They passed the torch on to the +people of Britain--and from Britain many years later men sailed to +build up the new great nation in America. So the torch has run from +East to West, from that day to this, and from those people of long ago +to us. But we owe this most of all to Paul, the first missionary, +who gave his life to bring the Good News from the lands of Syria and +Judaea, where our Lord Jesus Christ lived and died and rose again. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[Footnote 2: The dates are, of course, conjectural; but those given +are accepted by high authorities. Paul was about forty-four at the +time of this adventure.] + +[Footnote 3: The plateau on which Lystra, Derbe, Iconium, and +Antioch-in-Pisidia stood is from 3000 to 4000 feet above sea-level.] + +[Footnote 4: The aqueduct was standing there in 1914, when the author +was at Antioch-in-Pisidia (now called Yalowatch).] + +[Footnote 5: A Bible with maps attached will give the route from +Antioch in Syria, round the Gulf of Alexandretta, past Tarsus, up the +Cilician Gates to Derbe, Lystra, Iconium, and Antioch-in-Pisidia.] + +[Footnote 6: Compare Acts ix. I-8, xxvi. 12-20.] + +[Footnote 7: St. Paul's motive and message are developed more fully in +the Author's _Paul the Dauntless_.] + + + + +CHAPTER II + +THE MEN OF THE SHINGLE BEACH + +_Wilfrid of Sussex_ + +(Date, born A.D. 634. Incidents A.D. 666 and 681[8]) + + +Twelve hundred and fifty years ago a man named Wilfrid sailed along +the south coast of a great island in the North Seas. With him in the +ship were a hundred and twenty companions. + +The voyage had started well, but now the captain looked anxious as he +peered out under his curved hand, looking first south and then north. +There was danger in both directions. + +The breeze from the south stiffened to a gale. The mast creaked and +strained as the gathering storm tore at the mainsail. The ship reeled +and pitched as the spiteful waves smote her high bow and swept hissing +and gurgling along the deck. She began to jib like a horse and refused +to obey her rudder. Wind and current were carrying her out of her +course. + +In spite of all the captain's sea-craft the ship was being driven +nearer to the dreaded, low, shingle beach of the island that stretched +along the northern edge of the sea. The captain did not fear the +coast itself, for it had no rocks. But the lines deepened on his +weather-scarred face as he saw, gathering on the shelving beach, the +wild, yellow-haired men of the island. + +The ship was being carried nearer and nearer to the coast. All on +board could now see the Men of the Shingle Beach waving their spears +and axes. + +The current and the wind swung the ship still closer to the shore, and +now--even above the whistle of the gale in the cordage--the crew heard +the wild whoop of the wreckers. These men on the beach were the sons +of pirates. But they were now cowards compared with their fathers. For +they no longer lived by the wild sea-rover's fight that had made +their fathers' blood leap with the joy of the battle. They lived by +a crueller craft. Waiting till some such vessel as this was swept +ashore, they would swoop down on it, harry and slay the men, carry the +women and children off for slaves, break up the ship and take the wood +and stores for fire and food. They were beach-combers. + +An extra swing of the tide, a great wave--and with a thud the ship was +aground, stuck fast on the yielding sands. With a wild yell, and with +their tawny manes streaming in the wind, the wreckers rushed down the +beach brandishing their spears. + +Wilfrid, striding to the side of the ship, raised his hand to show +that he wished to speak to the chief. But the island men rushed on +like an avalanche and started to storm the ship. Snatching up arms, +poles, rope-ends--whatever they could find--the men on board beat down +upon the heads of the savages as they climbed up the ship's slippery +side. One man after another sank wounded on the deck. The fight grew +more obstinate, but at last the men of the beach drew back up the +sands, baffled. + +The Men of the Shingle Beach might have given up the battle had not +a fierce priest of their god of war leapt on to a mound of sand, and, +lifting his naked arms to the skies, called on the god to destroy the +men in the ship. + +The savages were seized with a new frenzy and swept down the beach +again. Wilfrid had gathered his closest friends round him and was +quietly kneeling on the deck praying to his God for deliverance from +the enemy. The fight became desperate. Again the savages were driven +back up the beach. + +Once more they rallied and came swooping down on the ship. But a +pebble from the sling of a man on the ship struck the savage priest +on the forehead; he tottered and fell on the sand. This infuriated +the savages, yet it took the heart out of these men who had trusted in +their god of war. + +Meanwhile the tide had been creeping up; it swung in still further and +lifted the ship from the sand; the wind veered, the sails strained. +Slowly, but with gathering speed, the ship stood out to sea followed +by howls of rage from the men on the beach. + + * * * * * + +Some years passed by, yet Wilfrid in all his travels had never +forgotten the Men of the Beach. And, strangely enough, he wanted to go +back to them. + +At last the time came when he could do so. This time he did not visit +them by sea. After he had preached among the people in a distant +part of the same great island, Wilfrid with four faithful +companions--Eappa, Padda, Burghelm and Oiddi--walked down to the south +coast of the island. + +As he came to the tribe he found many of them gathered on the beach +as before. But the fierceness was gone. They tottered with weakness as +they walked. The very bones seemed ready to come through their skin. +They were starving with hunger and thirst from a long drought, when +no grain or food of any kind would grow. And now they were gathered on +the shore, and a long row of them linked hand in hand would rush down +the very beach upon which they had attacked Wilfrid, and would cast +themselves into the sea to get out of the awful agonies of their +hunger. + +"Are there not fish in the sea for food?" asked Wilfrid. + +"Yes, but we cannot catch them," they answered. + +Wilfrid showed the wondering Men of the Shingle Beach how to make +large nets and then launched out in the little boats that they owned, +and let the nets down. For hour after hour Wilfrid and his companions +fished, while the savages watched them from the beach with hungry eyes +as the silver-shining fish were drawn gleaming and struggling into the +boats. + +At last, as evening drew on, the nets were drawn in for the last time, +and Wilfrid came back to the beach with hundreds of fish in the boats. +With eager joy the Men of the Beach lit fires and cooked the fish. +Their hunger was stayed; the rain for which Wilfrid prayed came. They +were happy once more. + +Then Wilfrid gathered them all around him on the beach and said words +like these: + +"You men tried to kill me and my friends on this beach years ago, +trusting in your god of war. You _failed_. There is no god of war. +There is but one God, a God not of war, but of Love, Who sent His only +Son to tell about His love. That Son, Jesus Christ, Who fed the hungry +multitudes by the side of the sea with fish, sent me to you to show +love to you, feeding you with fish from the sea, and feeding you with +His love, which is the Bread of Life." + +The wondering savages, spear in hand, shook their matted hair and +could not take it in at once. Yet they and their boys and girls had +already learned to trust Wilfrid, and soon began to love the God of +Whom he spoke. + + * * * * * + +Now, those savages were the great, great, great grandfathers and +mothers of the English-speaking peoples of the world. The North Sea +Island was Britain; the beach was at Selsey near Chichester on the +South Coast. And the very fact that you and I are alive to-day, the +shelter of our homes, the fact that we can enjoy the wind on the heath +in camp, our books and sport and school, all these things come to us +through men like Wilfrid and St. Patrick, St. Columba and St. Ninian, +St. Augustine and others who in the days of long ago came to lift our +fathers from the wretched, quarrelsome life, and from the starving +helplessness of the Men of the Shingle Beach. + +The people of the North Sea Islands and of America and the rest of +the Christian world have these good things in their life because +there came to save our forefathers heroic missionaries like Wilfrid, +Columba, and Augustine. There are to-day men of the South Sea Islands, +who are even more helpless than our Saxon grandfathers. + +To get without giving is mean. To take the torch and not to pass it on +is to fail to play the game. We must hand on to the others the light +that has come to us. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[Footnote 8: The chief authority for the story of Wilfrid is Bede.] + + + + +CHAPTER III + +THE KNIGHT OF A NEW CRUSADE + +_Raymund Lull_ + +(Dates, b. 1234, d. 1315) + + +I + +A little old man, barefooted and bareheaded, and riding upon an ass, +went through the cities and towns and villages of Europe, in the +eleventh century, carrying--not a lance, but a crucifix. When he came +near a town the word ran like a forest fire, "It is Peter the Hermit." + +All the people rushed out. Their hearts burned as they heard him tell +how the tomb of Jesus Christ was in the hand of the Moslem Turk, of +how Christians going to worship at His Tomb in Jerusalem were thrown +into prison and scourged and slain. Knights sold lands and houses to +buy horses and lances. Peasants threw down the axe and the spade for +the pike and bow and arrows. Led by knights, on whose armour a red +Cross was emblazoned, the people poured out in their millions for the +first Crusade. It is said that in the spring of 1096 an "expeditionary +force" of six million people was heading toward Palestine. + +The Crusades were caused partly by the cruelty of the followers of +Mohammed, the Moslem Turks, who believed that they could earn entrance +into Paradise by slaying infidel Christians. The Moslems every day and +five times a day turn their faces to Mecca in Arabia, saying "There is +no God but God; Mohammed is the Prophet of God." Allah (they believe) +is wise and merciful to His own, but not holy, nor our Father, +nor loving and forgiving, nor desiring pure lives. On earth and in +Paradise women have no place save to serve men. + +The first Crusade ended in the capture of Jerusalem (July 15, 1099), +and Godfrey de Bouillon became King of Jerusalem. But Godfrey refused +to put a crown upon his head. For, he said, "I will not wear a crown +of gold in the city where Our Lord Jesus Christ wore a crown of +thorns." + + The fortunes of Christian and Moslem ebbed and flowed for nearly + two hundred years, during which time there were seven Crusades + ending at the fall of Acre into the hands of the Turks in 1291. + + The way of the sword had failed, though indeed the Crusades had + probably been the means of preventing all Europe from being + overrun by the Moslems. At the time when the last Crusade had + begun a man was planning a new kind of Crusade, different in + method but calling for just as much bravery as the old kind. + We are going to hear his story now. + + +II + +_The Young Knight's Vision_ + +In the far-off days of the last of the Crusades, a knight of Majorca, +in the Mediterranean Sea, stood on the shore of his island home gazing +over the water. Raymund Lull from the beach of Palma Bay, where he +had played as a boy, now looked out southward, where boats with their +tall, rakish, brown sails ran in from the Great Sea. + +The knight was dreaming of Africa which lay away to the south of his +island. He had heard many strange stories from the sailors about the +life in the harbours of that mysterious African seaboard; but he had +never once in his thirty-six years set eyes upon one of its ports. + +It was the year when Prince Edward of England, out on the mad, futile +adventure of the last Crusade, was felled by the poisoned dagger of an +assassin in Nazareth, and when Eleanor (we are told) drew the poison +from the wound with her own lips. Yet Raymund Lull, who was a knight +so skilled that he could flash his sword and set his lance in rest +with any of his peers, had not joined that Crusade. His brave father +carried the scars of a dozen battles against the Moors. Yet, when the +last Crusade swept down the Mediterranean, Lull stood aside; for he +was himself planning a new Crusade of a kind unlike any that had gone +before. + +He dreamed of a Crusade not to the Holy Land but to Africa, where the +Crescent of Mohammed ruled and where the Cross of Christ was never +seen save when an arrogant Moslem drew a cross in the sand of the +desert to spit upon it. It was the desire of Raymund Lull's life to +sail out into those perilous ports and to face the fierce Saracens who +thronged the cities. He longed for this as other knights panted to go +out to the Holy Land as Crusaders. He was rich enough to sail at any +time, for he was his own master. Why, then, did he not take one of the +swift craft that rocked in the bay, and sail? + +It was because he had not yet forged a sharp enough weapon for his new +Crusade. His deep resolve was that at all costs he would "Be Prepared" +for every counter-stroke of the Saracen whose tongue was as swift and +sharp as his scimitar. + +What powers do we think a man should have in order to convince +fanatical Moslems, who knew their own sacred book--the Koran--of the +truth of Christianity? Control of his own temper, courage, patience, +knowledge of the Moslem religion and of the Bible, suggest themselves. + + +III + +_The Preparation of Temper_ + +So Lull turned his back on the beach and on Africa, and plunged under +the heavy shadows of the arched gateway through the city wall up the +narrow streets of Palma. A servant opened the heavy, studded door of +his father's mansion--the house where Lull himself was born. + +He hastened in and, calling to his Saracen slave, strode to his own +room. The dark-faced Moor obediently came, bowed before his young +master, and laid out on the table manuscripts that were covered with +mysterious writing such as few people in Europe could read. + +Lull was learning Arabic from this sullen Saracen slave. He was +studying the Koran--the Bible of the Mohammedans--so that he might be +able to strive with the Saracens on their own ground. For Lull knew +that he must be master of all the knowledge of the Moslem if he was +to win his battles; just as a knight in the fighting Crusades must +be swift and sure with his sword. And this is how Lull spoke of the +Crusade on which he was to set out. + +"I see many knights," he said, "going to the Holy Land beyond the seas +and thinking that they can acquire it by force of arms; but in the end +all are destroyed before they attain that which they think to have. +Whence it seems to me that the conquest of the Holy Land ought not +to be attempted except in the way in which Christ and His Apostles +achieved it, namely, by love and prayers, and the pouring out of tears +and blood." + +Suddenly, as he and the Saracen slave argued together, the Moor +blurted out passionately a horrible blasphemy against the name of +Jesus. Lull's blood was up. He leapt to his feet, leaned forward, and +caught the Moor a swinging blow on the face with his hand. In a fury +the Saracen snatched a dagger from the folds of his robe and, leaping +at Lull, drove it into his side. Raymund fell with a cry. Friends +rushed in. The Saracen was seized and hurried away to a prison-cell, +where he slew himself. + +Lull, as he lay day after day waiting for his wound to heal and +remembering his wild blow at the Saracen, realised that, although he +had learned Arabic, he had not yet learned the first lesson of his own +new way of Crusading--to be master of himself. + + +IV + +_The Preparation of Courage_ + +So Raymund Lull (at home and in Rome and Paris) set himself afresh to +his task of preparing. At last he felt that he was ready. From Paris +he rode south-east through forest and across plain, over mountain and +pass, till the gorgeous palaces and the thousand masts of Genoa came +in sight. + +He went down to the harbour and found a ship that was sailing across +the Mediterranean to Africa. He booked his passage and sent his goods +with all his precious manuscripts aboard. The day for sailing came. +His friends came to cheer him. But Lull sat in his room trembling. + +As he covered his eyes with his hands in shame, he saw the fiery, +persecuting Saracens of Tunis, whom he was sailing to meet. He knew +they were glowing with pride because of their triumphs over the +Crusaders in Palestine. He knew they were blazing with anger because +their brother Moors had been slaughtered and tortured in Spain. He saw +ahead of him the rack, the thumb-screw, and the boot; the long years +in a slimy dungeon--at the best the executioner's scimitar. He simply +dared not go. + +The books were brought ashore again. The ship sailed without Lull. + +"The ship has gone," said a friend to Lull. He quivered under a +torture of shame greater than the agony of the rack. He was wrung with +bitter shame that he who had for all these years prepared for this +Crusade should now have shown the white feather. He was, indeed, a +craven knight of Christ. + +His agony of spirit threw him into a high fever that kept him in his +bed. + +Soon after he heard that another ship was sailing for Africa. + +In spite of the protestations of his friends Lull insisted that they +should carry him to the ship. They did so; but as the hour of sailing +drew on his friends were sure that he was so weak that he would die +on the sea before he could reach Africa. So--this time in spite of all +his pleading--they carried him ashore again. But he could not rest and +his agony of mind made his fever worse. + +Soon, however, a third ship was making ready to sail. This time Lull +was carried on board and refused to return. + +The ship cast off and threaded its way through the shipping of the +harbour out into the open sea. + +"From this moment," said Lull, "I was a new man. All fever left me +almost before we were out of sight of land." + + +V + +_The First Battle_ + +Passing Corsica and Sardinia, the ship slipped southward till at last +she made the yellow coast of Africa, broken by the glorious Gulf +of Tunis. She dropped sail as she ran alongside the busy wharves of +Goletta. Lull was soon gliding in a boat through the short ancient +canal to Tunis, the mighty city which was head of all the Western +Mohammedan world. + +He landed and found the place beside the great mosque where the +grey-bearded scholars bowed over their Korans and spoke to one another +about the law of Mohammed. + +They looked at him with amazement as he boldly came up to them and +said, "I have come to talk with you about Christ and His Way of Life, +and Mohammed and his teaching. If you can prove to me that Mohammed is +indeed _the_ Prophet, I will myself become a follower of him." + +The Moslems, sure of their case, called together their wisest men and +together they declaimed to Lull what he already knew very well--the +watchword that rang out from minaret to minaret across the roofs of +the vast city as the first flush of dawn came up from the East across +the Gulf. "There is no God but God; Mohammed is the Prophet of God." + +"Yes," he replied, "the Allah of Mohammed is one and is great, but He +does not love as does the Father of Jesus Christ. He is wise, but He +does not do good to men like our God who so loved the world that He +gave His Son Jesus Christ." + +To and fro the argument swung till, after many days, to their dismay +and amazement the Moslems saw some of their number waver and at last +actually beginning to go over to the side of Lull. To forsake the +Faith of Mohammed is--by their own law--to be worthy of death. A +Moslem leader hurried to the Sultan of Tunis. + +"See," he said, "this learned teacher, Lull, is declaring the errors +of the Faith. He is dangerous. Let us take him and put him to death." + +The Sultan gave the word of command. A body of soldiers went out, +seized Lull, dragged him through the streets, and threw him into a +dark dungeon to wait the death sentence. + +But another Moslem who had been deeply touched by Lull's teaching +craved audience with the Sultan. + +"See," he said, "this learned man Lull--if he were a Moslem--would +be held in high honour, being so brave and fearless in defence of his +Faith. Do not slay him. Banish him from Tunis." + +So when Lull in his dungeon saw the door flung open and waited to be +taken to his death he found to his surprise that he was led from the +dungeon through the streets of Tunis, taken along the canal, thrust +into the hold of a ship, and told that he must go in that ship to +Genoa and never return. But the man who had before been afraid to sail +from Genoa to Tunis, now escaped unseen from the ship that would have +taken him back to safety in order to risk his life once more. He said +to himself the motto he had written: + + +--------------------------------------+ + | "HE WHO LOVES NOT, LIVES NOT! HE WHO | + | LIVES BY THE LIFE CANNOT DIE." | + +--------------------------------------+ + +He was not afraid now even of martyrdom. He hid among the wharves +and gathered his converts about him to teach them more and more about +Christ. + + +VI + +_The Last Fight_ + +At last, however, seeing that he could do little in hiding, Lull took +ship to Naples. After many adventures during a number of years, in a +score of cities and on the seas, the now white-haired Lull sailed into +the curved bay of Bugia farther westward along the African coast. In +the bay behind the frowning walls the city with its glittering mosques +climbed the hill. Behind rose two glorious mountains crowned with the +dark green of the cedar. And, far off, like giant Moors wearing white +turbans, rose the distant mountain peaks crowned with snow. + +Lull passed quietly through the arch of the city gateway which he knew +so well, for among other adventures he had once been imprisoned in +this very city. He climbed the steep street and found a friend who hid +him away. There for a year Lull taught in secret till he felt that the +time had come for him to go out boldly and dare death itself. + +One day the people in the market-place of Bugia heard a voice ring out +that seemed to some of them strangely familiar. They hurried toward +the sound. There stood the old hero with arm uplifted declaring, in +the full blaze of the North African day, the Love of God shown in +Jesus Christ His Son. + +The Saracens murmured. They could not answer his arguments. They cried +to him to stop, but his voice rose ever fuller and bolder. They rushed +on him, dragged him by the cloak out of the market-place, down the +streets, under the archway to a place beyond the city walls. There +they threw back their sleeves, took up great jagged stones and hurled +these grim messengers of hate at the Apostle of Love, till he sank +senseless to the ground.[9] + +It was word for word over again the story of Stephen; the speech, the +wild cries of the mob, the rush to the place beyond the city wall, the +stoning.[10] + +Did Lull accomplish anything? He was dead; but he had conquered. He +had conquered his old self. For the Lull who had, in a fit of temper, +smitten his Saracen slave now smiled on the men who stoned him; and +the Lull who had showed the white feather of fear at Genoa, now defied +death in the market-place of Bugia. And in that love and heroism, in +face of hate and death, he had shown men the only way to conquer +the scimitar of Mohammed, "the way in which Christ and His Apostles +achieved it, namely, by love and prayers, and the pouring out of tears +and blood." + +FOOTNOTES: + +[Footnote 9: June 30. 1315.] + +[Footnote 10: Acts vi. 8-vii. 60.] + + + + +CHAPTER IV + +FRANCIS COEUR-DE-LION + +(_St. Francis of Assisi_) A.D. 1181-1226 (Date of Incident, 1219) + + +I + +The dark blue sky of an Italian night was studded with sparkling stars +that seemed to be twinkling with laughter at the pranks of a lively +group of gay young fellows as they came out from a house half-way up +the steep street of the little city of Assisi. + +As they strayed together down the street they sang the love-songs of +their country and then a rich, strong voice rang out singing a song in +French. + +"That is Francis Bernardone," one neighbour would say to another, +nodding his head, for Francis could sing, not only in his native +Italian, but also in French. + +"He lives like a prince; yet he is but the son of a cloth +merchant,--rich though the merchant be." + +So the neighbours, we are told, were always grumbling about Francis, +the wild spendthrift. For young Francis dressed in silk and always in +the latest fashion; he threw his pocket-money about with a free hand. +He loved beautiful things. He was very sensitive. He would ride a long +way round to avoid seeing the dreadful face of a poor leper, and would +hold his nose in his cloak as he passed the place where the lepers +lived. + +He was handsome in face, gallant in bearing, idle and careless; a +jolly companion, with beautiful courtly manners. His dark chestnut +hair curled over his smooth, rather small forehead. His black +twinkling eyes looked out under level brows; his nose was straight and +finely shaped. + +When he laughed he showed even, white, closely set teeth between +thin and sensitive lips. He wore a short, black beard. His arms were +shortish; his fingers long and sensitive. He was lightly built; his +skin was delicate. + +He was witty, and his voice when he spoke was powerful and sonorous, +yet sweet-toned and very clear. + +For him to be the son of a merchant seemed to the gossips of Assisi +all wrong--as though a grey goose had hatched out a gorgeous peacock. + +The song of the revellers passed down the street and died away. The +little city of Assisi slept in quietness on the slopes of the Apennine +Mountains under the dark clear sky. + +A few nights later, however, no song of any revellers was heard. +Francis Bernardone was very ill with a fever. For week after week his +mother nursed him; and each night hardly believed that her son would +live to see the light of the next morning. When at last the fever left +him, he was so feeble that for weeks he could not rise from his bed. +Gradually, however, he got better: as he did so the thing that he +desired most of all in the world was to see the lovely country around +Assisi;--the mountains, the Umbrian Plain beneath, the blue skies, the +dainty flowers. + +At last one day, with aching limbs and in great feebleness, he crept +out of doors. There were the great Apennine Mountains on the side of +which his city of Assisi was built. There were the grand rocky peaks +pointing to the intense blue sky. There was the steep street with the +houses built of stone of a strange, delicate pink colour, as though +the light of dawn were always on them. There were the dark green olive +trees, and the lovely tendrils of the vines. The gay Italian flowers +were blooming. + +Stretching away in the distance was one of the most beautiful +landscapes of the world; the broad Umbrian Plain with its browns and +greens melting in the distance into a bluish haze that softened the +lines of the distant hills. + +How he had looked forward to seeing it all, to being in the sunshine, +to feeling the breeze on his hot brow! But what--he wondered--had +happened to him? He looked at it all, but he felt no joy. It all +seemed dead and empty. He turned his back on it and crawled indoors +again, sad and sick at heart. He was sure that he would never feel +again "the wild joys of living." + +As Francis went back to his bed he began to think what he should do +with the rest of his life. He made up his mind not to waste it any +longer: but he did not see clearly what he should do with it. + +A short time after Francis begged a young nobleman of Assisi, who +was just starting to fight in a war, if he might go with him. The +nobleman--Walter of Brienne, agreed: so Francis bought splendid +trappings for his horse, and a shield, sword and spear. His armour and +his horse's harness were more splendid than even those of Walter. So +they went clattering together out of Assisi. + +But he had not gone thirty miles before he was smitten again by fever. +After sunset one evening he lay dreamily on his bed when he seemed to +hear a voice. + +"Francis," it asked, "what could benefit thee most, the master or the +servant, the rich man or the poor?" + +"The master and the rich man," answered Francis in surprise. + +"Why then," went on the voice, "dost thou leave God, Who is the Master +and rich, for man, who is the servant and poor?" + +"Then, Lord, what will Thou that I do?" asked Francis. + +"Return to thy native town, and it shall be shown thee there what thou +shall do," said the voice. + +He obediently rose and went back to Assisi. He tried to join again in +the old revels, but the joy was gone. He went quietly away to a cave +on the mountain side and there he lay--as young Mahomet had done, you +remember, five centuries before, to wonder what he was to do. + +Then a vision came to him. All at once like a flash his mind was +clear, and his soul was full of joy. He saw the love of Jesus +Christ--Who had lived and suffered and died for love of him and of +all men;--that love was to rule his own life! He had found his +Captain--the Master of his life, the Lord of his service,--Christ. + +Yet even now he hardly knew what to do. He went home and told his +friends as well as he could of the change in his heart. + +Some smiled rather pityingly and went away saying to one another: +"Poor fellow; a little mad, you can see; very sad for his parents!" + +Others simply laughed and mocked. + +One day, very lonely and sad at heart, he clambered up the mountain +side to an old church just falling into ruin near which, in a cavern, +lived a priest. He went into the ruin and fell on his knees. + +"Francis," a voice in his soul seemed to say, "dost thou see my house +going to ruin. Buckle to and repair it." + +He dashed home, saddled his horse, loaded it with rich garments and +rode off to another town to sell the goods. He sold the horse too; +trudged back up the hill and gave the fat purse to the priest. + +"No," said the priest, "I dare not take it unless your father says I +may." + +But his father, who had got rumour of what was going on, came with a +band of friends to drag Francis home. Francis fled through the woods +to a secret cave, where he lay hidden till at last he made up his mind +to face all. He came out and walked straight towards home. Soon the +townsmen of Assisi caught sight of him. + +"A madman," they yelled, throwing stones and sticks at him. All the +boys of Assisi came out and hooted and threw pebbles. + +His father heard the riot and rushed out to join in the fun. Imagine +his horror when he found that it was his own son. He yelled with +rage, dashed at him and, clutching him by the robe, dragged him along, +beating and cursing him. When he got him home he locked him up. But +some days later Francis' mother let him out, when his father was +absent; and Francis climbed the hill to the Church. + +The bishop called in Francis and his father to his court to settle the +quarrel. + +"You must give back to your father all that you have," said he. + +"I will," replied Francis. + +He took off all his rich garments; and, clad only in a hair-vest, he +put the clothes and the purse of money at his father's feet. + +"Now," he cried, "I have but one father. Henceforth I can say in all +truth 'Our Father Who art in heaven.'" + +A peasant's cloak was given to Francis. He went thus, without home +or any money, a wanderer. He went to a monastery and slaved in the +kitchen. A friend gave him a tunic, some shoes, and a stick. He went +out wandering in Italy again. He loved everybody; he owned nothing; he +wanted everyone to know the love of Jesus as he knew and enjoyed that +love. + +There came to Francis many adventures. He was full of joy; he sang +even to the birds in the woods. Many men joined him as his disciples +in the way of obedience, of poverty, and of love. Men in Italy, in +Spain, in Germany and in Britain caught fire from the flame of his +simple love and careless courage. Never had Europe seen so clear a +vision of the love of Jesus. His followers were called the Lesser +Brothers (Friars Minor). + +All who can should read the story of Francis' life: as for us we are +here going simply to listen to what happened to him on a strange and +perilous adventure. + + +II + +About this time people all over Europe were agog with excitement about +the Crusades. Four Crusades had come and gone. Richard Coeur-de-Lion +was dead. But the passion for fighting against the Saracen was still +in the hearts of men. + +"The tomb of our Lord in Jerusalem is in the hands of the Saracen," +the cry went up over all Europe. "Followers of Jesus Christ are slain +by the scimitars of Islam. Let us go and wrest the Holy City from the +hands of the Saracen." + +There was also the danger to Europe itself. The Mohammedans ruled in +Spain as well as in North Africa, in Egypt and in the Holy Land. + +So rich men sold their lands to buy horses and armour and to fit +themselves and their foot soldiers for the fray. Poor men came armed +with pike and helmet and leather jerkin. The knights wore a blood-red +cross on their white tunics. In thousands upon thousands, with John +of Brienne as their Commander-in-Chief (the brother of that Walter of +Brienne with whom, you remember, Francis had started for the wars as +a knight), they sailed the Mediterranean to fight for the Cross in +Egypt. + +They attacked Egypt because the Sultan there ruled over Jerusalem and +they hoped by defeating him to free Jerusalem at the same time. + +As Francis saw the knights going off to the Crusades in shining armour +with the trappings of their horses all a-glitter and a-jingle, and as +he thought of the lands where the people worshipped--not the God and +Father of our Lord Jesus Christ--but the "Sultan in the Sky," the +Allah of Mahomet, his spirit caught fire within him. + +Francis had been a soldier and a knight only a few years before. He +could not but feel the stir of the Holy War in his veins,--the tingle +of the desire to be in it. He heard the stories of the daring of the +Crusaders; he heard of a great victory over the Saracens. + +Francis, indeed, wanted Jesus Christ to conquer men more than he +wanted anything on earth; but he knew that men are only conquered by +Jesus Christ if their hearts are changed by Him. + +"Even if the Saracens are put to the sword and overwhelmed, still they +are not saved," he said to himself. + +As he thought these things he felt sure that he heard them calling to +him (as the Man from Macedonia had called to St. Paul)--"Come over and +help us." St. Paul had brought the story of Jesus Christ to Europe; +and had suffered prison and scourging and at last death by the +executioner's sword in doing it; must not Francis be ready to take the +same message back again from Europe to the Near East and to suffer for +it? + +"I will go," he said, "but to save the Saracens, not to slay them." + +He was not going out to fight, yet he had in his heart a plan that +needed him to be braver and more full of resource than any warrior +in the armies of the Crusades. He was as much a Lion-hearted hero +as Richard Coeur-de-Lion himself, and was far wiser and indeed more +powerful. + +So he took a close friend, Brother Illuminato, with him and they +sailed away together over the seas. They sailed from Italy with Walter +of Brienne, with one of the Crusading contingents in many ships. +Southeast they voyaged over the blue waters of the Mediterranean Sea. + +Francis talked with the Crusaders on board; and much that they said +and did made him very sad. They squabbled with one another. +The knights were arrogant and sneered at the foot soldiers; the +men-at-arms did not trust the knights. They had the Cross on their +armour; but few of them had in their hearts the spirit of Jesus who +was nailed to the Cross. + +At last the long, yellow coast-line of Egypt was sighted. Behind it +lay the minarets and white roofs of a city. They were come to the +eastern mouth of the Nile, on which stood the proud city of Damietta. +The hot rays of the sun smote down upon the army of the Crusaders as +they landed. The sky and the sea were of an intense blue; the sand and +the sun glared at one another. + +Francis would just be able to hear at dawn the cry of the muezzin from +the minarets of Damietta, "Come to prayer: there is no God but Allah +and Mahomet is his prophet. Come to prayer. Prayer is better than +sleep." + +John of Brienne began to muster his men in battle array to attack the +Sultan of Egypt, Malek-Kamel, a name which means "the Perfect Prince." + +Francis, however, was quite certain that the attempt would be a +ghastly failure. He hardly knew what to do. So he talked it over with +his friend, Brother Illuminato. + +"I know they will be defeated in this attempt," he said. "But if I +tell them so they will treat me as a madman. On the other hand, if +I do not tell them, then my conscience will condemn me. What do you +think I ought to do?" + +"My brother," said Illuminate, "what does the judgment of the world +matter to you? If they say you are mad it will not be the first time!" + +Francis, therefore, went to the Crusaders and warned them. They +laughed scornfully. The order for advance was given. The Crusaders +charged into battle. Francis was in anguish--tears filled his eyes. +The Saracens came out and fell upon the Christian soldiers and +slaughtered them. Over 6000 of them either fell under the scimitar or +were taken prisoner. The Crusaders were defeated. + +Francis' mind was now fully made up. He went to a Cardinal, who +represented the Pope, with the Crusading Army to ask his leave to go +and preach to the Sultan of Egypt. + +"No," said the Cardinal, "I cannot give you leave to go. I know full +well that you would never escape to come back alive. The Sultan of +Egypt has offered a reward of gold to any man who will bring to him +the head of a Christian. That will be your fate." + +"Do suffer us to go, we do not fear death," pleaded Francis and +Illuminato, again and again. + +"I do not know what is in your minds in this," said the Cardinal, "but +beware--if you go--that your thoughts are always to God." + +"We only wish to go for great good, if we can work it," replied +Francis. + +"Then if you wish it so much," the Cardinal at last agreed, "you may +go." + +So Francis and Illuminato girded their loins and tightened their +sandals and set away from the Crusading Army towards the very camp of +the enemy. + +As he walked Francis sang with his full, loud, clear voice. These were +the words that he sang: + + +Yea though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will +fear no evil; for thou art with me; Thy rod and thy staff, they +comfort me. + + +As they walked along over the sandy waste they saw two small sheep +nibbling the sparse grass growing near the Nile. + +"Be of good cheer," said Francis to Illuminato, smiling, "it is the +fulfilling of the Gospel words 'Behold I send you as sheep in the +midst of wolves.'" + +Then there appeared some Saracen soldiers. They were, at first, for +letting the two unarmed men go by; but, on questioning Francis, they +grew angrier and angrier. + +"Are you deserters from the Christian camp?" they asked. + +"No," replied Francis. + +"Are you envoys from the commander come to plead for peace?" + +"No," was the answer again. + +"Will you give up the infidel religion and become a true believer and +say 'There is no God but Allah, and Mahomet is his prophet?'" + +"No, no," cried Francis, "we are come to preach the Good News of Jesus +Christ to the Sultan of Egypt." + +The eyes of the Saracen soldiers opened with amazement: they could +hardly believe their ears. Their faces flushed under their dark skins +with anger. + +"Chain them," they cried to one another. "Beat them--the infidels." + +Chains were brought and snapped upon the wrists and ankles of +Francis and Illuminato. Then they took rods and began to beat the two +men--just as Paul and Silas had been beaten eleven centuries earlier. + +As the rods whistled through the air and came slashing upon their +wounded backs Francis kept crying out one word--"Soldan--Soldan." That +is "Sultan--Sultan." + +He thus made them understand that he wished to be taken to their +Commander-in-Chief. So they decided to take these strange beings to +Malek-Kamel. + +As the Sultan sat in his pavilion Francis and Illuminato were led in. +They bowed and saluted him courteously and Malek-Kamel returned the +salute. + +"Have you come with a message from your Commander?" said the Sultan. + +"No," replied Francis. + +"You wish then to become Saracens--worshippers of Allah in the name of +Mahomet?" + +"Nay, nay," answered Francis, "Saracens we will never be. We have come +with a message from God; it is a message that will save your life. If +you die under the law of Mahomet you are lost. We have come to tell +you so: if you listen to us we will show all this to you." + +The Sultan seems to have been amused and interested rather than angry. + +"I have bishops and archbishops of my own," he said, "they can tell me +all that I wish to know." + +"Of this we are glad," replied Francis, "send and fetch them, if you +will." + +The Sultan agreed; he sent for eight of his Moslem great men. When +they came in he said to them: "See these men, they have come to teach +us a new faith. Shall we listen to them?" + +"Sire," they answered him at once, "thou knowest the law: thou art +bound to uphold it and carry it out. By Mahomet who gave us the law +to slay infidels, we command thee that their heads be cut off. We will +not listen to a word that they say. Off with their heads!" + +The great men, having given their judgment, solemnly left the presence +of the Sultan. The Sultan turned to Francis and Illuminato. + +"Masters," he said to them, "they have commanded me by Mahomet to have +your heads cut off. But I will go against the law, for you have risked +your lives to save my immortal soul. Now leave me for the time." + +The two Christian missionaries were led away; but in a day or two +Malek-Kamel called them to his presence again. + +"If you will stay in my dominions," he said, "I will give you land and +other possessions." + +"Yes," said Francis, "I will stay--on one condition--that you and your +people turn to the worship of the true God. See," he went on, "let +us put it to the test. Your priests here," and he pointed to some who +were standing about, "they will not let me talk with them; will they +do something. Have a great fire lighted. I will walk into the fire +with them: the result will shew you whose faith is the true one." + +As Francis suggested this idea the faces of the Moslem leaders were +transfigured with horror. They turned and quietly walked away. + +"I do not think," said the Sultan with a sarcastic smile at their +retreating backs, "that any of my priests are ready to face the flames +to defend their faith." + +"Well, I will go _alone_ into the fire," said Francis. "If I am +burned--it is because of my sins--if I am protected by God then you +will own Him as your God." + +"No," replied the Sultan, "I will not listen to the idea of such a +trial of your life for my soul." But he was astonished beyond measure +at the amazing faith of Francis. So Francis withdrew from the presence +of the Sultan, who at once sent after him rich and costly presents. + +"You must take them back," said Francis to the messengers; "I will not +take them." + +"Take them to build your churches and support your priests," said the +Sultan through his messengers. + +But Francis would not take any gift from the Sultan. He left him and +went back with Illuminato from the Saracen host to the camp of the +Crusaders. As he was leaving the Sultan secretly spoke with Francis +and said: "Will you pray for me that I may be guided by an inspiration +from above that I may join myself to the religion that is most +approved by God?" + +The Sultan told off a band of his soldiers to go with the two men and +to protect them from any molesting till they reached the Crusaders' +Camp. There is a legend--though no one now can tell whether it is true +or not--that when the Sultan of Egypt lay dying he sent for a disciple +of Francis to be with him and pray for him. Whether this was so or +not, it is quite clear that Francis had left in the memory of the +Sultan such a vision of dauntless faith as he had never seen before or +was ever to see again. + +The Crusaders failed to win Egypt or the Holy Land; but to-day men are +going from America and Britain in the footsteps of Francis of Assisi +the Christian missionary, to carry to the people in Egypt, in the Holy +Land and in all the Near East, the message that Francis took of the +love of Jesus Christ. The stories of some of the deeds they have done +and are to-day doing, we shall read in later chapters in this book. + + + + +Book Two: THE ISLAND ADVENTURERS + + + + +CHAPTER V + +THE ADVENTUROUS SHIP + +_The Duff_ + +(Date of Incident, 1796) + + +A ship crept quietly down the River Thames on an ebb-tide. She was +slipping out from the river into the estuary when suddenly a challenge +rang out across the grey water. + +"What ship is that?" + +"_The Duff_," was the answer that came back from the little ship whose +captain had passed through a hundred hairsbreadth escapes in his life +but was now starting on the strangest adventure of them all. + +"Whither bound?" came the challenge again from the man-o'-war that had +hailed them. + +"Otaheite," came the answer, which would startle the Government +officer. For Tahiti[11] (as we now call it) was many thousands of +miles away in the heart of the South Pacific Ocean. Indeed it had only +been discovered by Captain Cook twenty-eight years earlier in 1768. +_The Duff_ was a small sailing-ship such as one of our American ocean +liners of to-day could put into her dining saloon. + +"What cargo?" The question came again from the officer on the +man-o'-war. + +"Missionaries and provisions," was Captain Wilson's answer. + +The man-o'-war's captain was puzzled. He did not know what strange +beings might be meant by missionaries. He was suspicious. Were they +pirates, perhaps, in disguise! + +We can understand how curious it would sound to him when we remember +that (although Wilfrid and Augustine and Columba had gone to Britain +as missionaries over a thousand years before _The Duff_ started down +the Thames) no cargo of missionaries had ever before sailed from those +North Sea Islands of Britain to the savages of other lands like the +South Sea Islands. + +There was a hurried order and a scurry on board the Government ship. +A boat was let down into the Thames, and half a dozen sailors tumbled +into her and rowed to _The Duff._ What did the officer find? + +He was met at the rail by a man who had been through scores of +adventures, Captain Wilson. The son of the captain of a Newcastle +collier, Wilson had grown up a dare-devil sailor boy. He enlisted as +a soldier in the American war, became captain of a vessel trading with +India, and was then captured and imprisoned by the French in India. He +escaped from prison by climbing a great wall, and dropping down forty +feet on the other side. He plunged into a river full of alligators, +and swam across, escaping the jaws of alligators only to be captured +on the other bank by Indians, chained and made to march barefoot +for 500 miles. Then he was thrust into Hyder Ali's loathsome prison, +starved and loaded with irons, and at last at the end of two years was +set free. + +This was the daring hero who had now undertaken to captain the little +_Duff_ across the oceans of the world to the South Seas. With +Captain Wilson, the man-o'-war officer found also six carpenters, two +shoemakers, two bricklayers, two sailors, two smiths, two weavers, a +surgeon, a hatter, a shopkeeper, a cotton factor, a cabinet-maker, a +draper, a harness maker, a tin worker, a butcher and four ministers. +But they were all of them missionaries. With them were six children. + +All up and down the English Channel French frigates sailed like hawks +waiting to pounce upon their prey; for England was at war with France +in those days. So for five weary weeks _The Duff_ anchored in the +roadstead of Spithead till, as one of a fleet of fifty-seven vessels, +she could sail down the channel and across the Bay of Biscay protected +by British men-o'-war. Safely clear of the French cruisers, _The Duff_ +held on alone till the cloud-capped mountain-heights of Madeira hove +in sight. + +Across the Atlantic she stood, for the intention was to sail round +South America into the Pacific. But on trying to round the Cape Horn +_The Duff_ met such violent gales that Captain Wilson turned her in +her tracks and headed back across the Atlantic for the Cape of Good +Hope. + +Week after week for thousands and thousands of miles she sailed. +She had travelled from Rio de Janiero over 10,000 miles and had only +sighted a single sail--a longer journey than any ship had ever sailed +without seeing land. + +"Shall we see the island to-day?" the boys on board would ask Captain +Wilson. Day after day he shook his head. But one night he said: + +"If the wind holds good to-night we shall see an island in the +morning, but not the island where we shall stop." + +"Land ho!" shouted a sailor from the masthead in the morning, and, +sure enough, they saw away on the horizon, like a cloud on the edge of +the sea, the island of Toobonai.[12] + +As they passed Toobonai the wind rose and howled through the rigging. +It tore at the sail of _The Duff,_ and the great Pacific waves rolled +swiftly by, rushing and hissing along the sides of the little ship and +tossing her on their foaming crests. But she weathered the storm, and, +as the wind dropped, and they looked ahead, they saw, cutting into the +sky-line, the mountain tops of Tahiti. + +It was Saturday night when the island came in sight. Early on the +Sunday morning by seven o'clock _The Duff_ swung round under a gentle +breeze into Matavai[13] Bay and dropped anchor. But before she could +even anchor the whole bay had become alive with Tahitians. They +thronged the beach, and, leaping into canoes, sent them skimming +across the bay to the ship. + +Captain Wilson, scanning the canoes swiftly and anxiously, saw with +relief that the men were not armed. But the missionaries were startled +when the savages climbed up the sides of the ship, and with wondering +eyes rolling in their wild heads peered over the rail of the deck. +They then leapt on board and began dancing like mad on the deck with +their bare feet. From the canoes the Tahitians hauled up pigs, fowl, +fish, bananas, and held them for the white men to buy. But Captain +Wilson and all his company would not buy on that day--for it was +Sunday. + +The missionaries gathered together on deck to hold their Sunday +morning service. The Tahitians stopped dancing and looked on with +amazement, as the company of white men with their children knelt to +pray and then read from the Bible. + +The Tahitians could not understand this strange worship, with no +god that could be seen. But when the white fathers and mothers and +children sang, the savages stood around with wonder and delight on +their faces as they listened to the strange and beautiful sounds. + +But the startling events of the day were not over. For out from the +beach came a canoe across the bay, and in it two Swedish sailors, +named, like some fishermen of long ago, Peter and Andrew. These +white men knew some English, but lived, not as Christians, but as the +natives lived. + +And after them came a great and aged chief named Haamanemane.[14] This +great chief went up to the "chief" of the ship, Captain Wilson, and +called out to him "Taio."[15] + +They did not know what this meant, till Peter the Swede explained +that Haamanemane wished to be the brother--the troth-friend of Captain +Wilson. They were even to change names. Captain Wilson would be called +Haamanemane, and Haamanemane would be called Wilson. + +So Captain Wilson said "Taio," and he and the chief, who was also high +priest of the gods of Tahiti, were brothers. + +Captain Wilson said to Haamanemane, through Peter, who translated each +to the other: + +"We wish to come and live in this island." + +Haamanemane said that he would speak to the king and queen of Tahiti +about it. So he got down again over the side of the vessel into the +canoe, and the paddles of his boatman flashed as they swept along over +the breakers to the beach to tell the king of the great white chief +who had come to visit them. + +All these things happened on the Sunday. On Tuesday word came that the +king and the queen would receive them. So Captain Wilson and all his +missionaries got into the whale-boat and pulled for the shore. The +natives rushed into the water, seized the boat and hauled her aground +out of reach of the great waves. + +They were startled to see the king and queen come riding on the +shoulders of men. Even when one bearer grew tired and the king or +the queen must get upon another, they were not allowed to touch the +ground. The reason was that all the land they touched became their +own, and the people carried them about so that they themselves might +not lose their land and houses by the king and queen touching them. + +So at that place, under the palm trees of Tahiti, with the beating +of the surf on the shore before them, and the great mountain forests +behind, these brown islanders of the South Seas gave a part of their +land to Captain Wilson and his men that they might live there. + +The sons of the wild men of the North Sea Islands had met their first +great adventure in bringing to the men of the South Sea Islands the +story of the love of the Father of all. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[Footnote 11: Ta-hee-tee.] + +[Footnote 12: Too-b[=o]-n[=a]-ee.] + +[Footnote 13: M[=a]-t[)a]-v[)a]-ee.] + +[Footnote 14: Haa-m[)u]-n[=a]y-m[)a]-nay.] + +[Footnote 15: Ta-ce-[=o].] + + + + +CHAPTER VI + +THE ISLAND BEACON FIRES + +_Papeiha_[16] + +(Date of Incident, 1823) + + +The edge of the sea was just beginning to gleam with the gold of the +rising sun. The captain of a little ship, that tossed and rolled on +the tumbling ocean, looked out anxiously over the bow. Around him +everywhere was the wild waste of the Pacific Ocean. Through day after +day he had tacked and veered, baffled by contrary winds. Now, with +little food left in the ship, starvation on the open ocean stared them +in the face. + +They were searching for an island of which they had heard, but which +they had never seen. + +The captain searched the horizon again, but he saw nothing, except +that ahead of him, on the sky-line to the S.W., great clouds had +gathered. He turned round and went to the master-missionary--the hero +and explorer and shipbuilder, John Williams, saying: + +"We must give up the search or we shall all be starved." + +John Williams knew that this was true; yet he hated the thought of +going back. He was a scout exploring at the head of God's navy. He had +left his home in London and with his young wife had sailed across the +world to the South Seas to carry the Gospel of Jesus Christ to the +people there. He was living on the island of Raiatea: but as he +himself said, "I cannot be confined within the limits of a single +reef." He wanted to pass on the torch to other islands. So he was now +on this voyage of discovery. + +It was seven o'clock when the captain told John Williams that they +must give up the search. + +"In an hour's time," said Williams, "we will turn back if we have not +sighted Rarotonga." + +So they sailed on. The sun climbed the sky, the cool dawn was giving +way to the heat of day. + +"Go up the mast and look ahead," said Williams to a South Sea Island +native. Then he paced the deck, hoping to hear the cry of "Land," but +nothing could the native see. + +"Go up again," cried Williams a little later. And again there was +nothing. Four times the man climbed the mast, and four times he +reported only sea and sky and cloud. Gradually the sun's heat had +gathered up the great mountains of cloud, and the sky was clear to the +edge of the ocean. Then there came a sudden cry from the masthead: + +"Teie teie, taua fenua, nei!"[17] + +"Here, here is the land we have been seeking." + +All rushed to the bows. As the ship sailed on and they came nearer, +they saw a lovely island. Mountains, towering peak on peak, with deep +green valleys between brown rocky heights hung with vines, and the +great ocean breakers booming in one white line of foaming surf on the +reef of living coral, made it look like a vision of fairyland. + +They had discovered Rarotonga. + +But what of the people of the island? + +They were said to be cannibals. + +Would they receive the missionaries with clubs and spears? Who would +go ashore? + +On board the ship were brown South Sea men from the island where John +Williams lived. They had burned their idols, and now they too were +missionaries of Jesus Christ. Their leader was a fearless young man, +Papeiha. He was so daring that once, when everybody else was afraid to +go from the ship to a cannibal island, he bound his Bible in his loin +cloth, tied them to the top of his head, and swam ashore, defying the +sharks, and unafraid of the still more cruel islanders. + +So at Rarotonga, when the call came, "Who will go ashore?" and a canoe +was let down from the ship's side, two men, Papeiha and his friend +Vahineino,[18] leapt into it. Those two fearlessly paddled towards the +shore, which was now one brown stretch of Rarotongans crowded together +to see this strange ship with wings that had sailed from over the +sea's edge. + +The Rarotongans seemed friendly; so Papeiha and Vahineino, who knew +the ways of the water from babyhood and could swim before they could +walk, waited for a great Pacific breaker, and then swept in on her +foaming crest. The canoe grated on the shore. They walked up the beach +under the shade of a grove of trees and said to the Rarotongan king, +Makea,[19] and his people: + +"We have come to tell you that many of the islands of the sea have +burned their idols. Once we in those islands pierced each other with +spears and beat each other to death with clubs; we brutally treated +our women, and the children taken in war were strung together by their +ears like fish on a line. To-day we come--before you have destroyed +each other altogether in your wars--to tell you of the great God, our +Father, who through His Son Jesus Christ has taught us how to live as +brothers." + +King Makea said he was pleased to hear these things, and came in his +canoe to the ship to take the other native teachers on shore with him. +The ship stood off for the night, for the ocean there is too deep for +anchorage. + +Papeiha and his brown friends, with their wives, went ashore. Night +fell, and they were preparing to sleep, when, above the thud and hiss +of the waves they heard the noise of approaching crowds. The footsteps +and the talking came nearer, while the little group of Christians +listened intently. At last a chief, carried by his warriors, came +near. He was the fiercest and most powerful chief on the island. + +When he came close to Papeiha and his friends, the chief demanded that +the wife of one of the Christian teachers should be given to him, +so that he might take her away with him as his twentieth wife. The +teachers argued with the chief, the woman wept; but he ordered the +woman to be seized and taken off. She resisted, as did the others. +Their clothes were torn to tatters by the ferocious Rarotongans. All +would have been over with the Christians, had not Tapairu,[20] a brave +Rarotongan woman and the cousin of the king, opposed the chiefs and +even fought with her hands to save the teacher's wife. At last the +fierce chief gave in, and Papeiha and his friends, before the sun +had risen, hurried to the beach, leapt into their canoe and paddled +swiftly to the ship. + +"We must wait and come to this island another day when the people are +more friendly," said every one--except Papeiha, who never would turn +back. "Let me stay with them," said he. + +He knew that he might be slain and eaten by the savage cannibals on +the island. But without fuss, leaving everything he had upon the +ship except his clothes and his native Testament, he dropped into his +canoe, seized the paddle, and with swift, strong strokes that never +faltered, drove the canoe skimming over the rolling waves till it +leapt to the summit of a breaking wave and ground upon the shore. + +The savages came jostling and waving spears and clubs as they crowded +round him. + +"Let us take him to Makea." + +So Papeiha was led to the chief. As he walked he heard them shouting +to one another, "I'll have his hat," "I'll have his jacket," "I'll +have his shirt." + +At length he reached the chief, who looked and said, "Speak to us, O +man, that we may know why you persist in coming." + +"I come," he answered, looking round on all the people, "so that you +may all learn of the true God, and that you, like all the people in +the far-off islands of the sea, may take your gods made of wood, of +birds' feathers and of cloth, and burn them." + +A roar of anger and horror burst from the people. "What!" they cried, +"burn the gods! What gods shall we then have? What shall we do without +the gods?" + +They were angry, but there was something in the bold face of Papeiha +that kept them from slaying him. They allowed him to stay, and did not +kill him. + +Soon after this, Papeiha one day heard shrieking and shouting and wild +roars as of men in a frenzy. He saw crowds of people round the gods +offering food to them; the priests with faces blackened with charcoal +and with bodies painted with stripes of red and yellow, the +warriors with great waving head-dresses of birds' feathers and white +sea-shells. Papeiha, without taking any thought of the peril that he +rushed into, went into the midst of the people and said: + +"Why do you act so foolishly? Why do you take a log of wood and carve +it, and then offer it food? It is only fit to be burned. Some day soon +you shall make these very gods fuel for fire." So with the companion +who came to help him, brown Papeiha went in and out of the island just +as brave Paul went in and out in the island of Cyprus and Wilfrid in +Britain. He would take his stand, now under a grove of bananas on +a great stone, and now in a village, where the people from the huts +gathered round, and again on the beach, where he would lift up his +voice above the boom of the ocean breakers to tell the story of Jesus. +And some of those degraded savages became Christians. + +One day he was surprised to see one of the priests come to him leading +his ten-year-old boy. + +"Take care of my boy," said the priest. "I am going to burn my god, +and I do not want my god's anger to hurt the boy. Ask your God to +protect him." So the priest went home. + +Next morning quite early, before the heat of the sun was great, +Papeiha looked out and saw the priest tottering along with bent and +aching shoulders. On his back was his cumbrous wooden god. Behind the +priest came a furious crowd, waving their arms and crying out: + +"Madman, madman, the god will kill you." + +"You may shout," answered the priest, "but you will not change me. +I am going to worship Jehovah, the God of Papeiha." And with that he +threw down the god at the feet of the teachers. One of them ran and +brought a saw, and first cut off its head and then sawed it into logs. +Some of the Rarotongans rushed away in dread. Others--even some of +the newly converted Christians--hid in the bush and peered through +the leaves to see what would happen. Papeiha lit a fire; the logs were +thrown on; the first Rarotongan idol was burned. + +"You will die," cried the priests of the fallen god. But to show that +the god was just a log of wood, the teachers took a bunch of bananas, +placed them on the ashes where the fire had died down, and roasted +them. Then they sat down and ate the bananas. + +The watching, awe-struck people looked to see the teachers fall dead, +but nothing happened. The islanders then began to wonder whether, +after all, the God of Papeiha was not the true God. Within a year they +had got together hundreds of their wooden idols, and had burned them +in enormous bonfires which flamed on the beach and lighted up the dark +background of trees. Those bonfires could be seen far out across the +Pacific Ocean, like a beacon light. + +To-day the flames of love which Papeiha bravely lighted, through +perils by water and club and cannibal feast, have shone right across +the ocean, and some of the grandchildren of those very Rarotongans who +were cannibals when Papeiha went there, have sailed away, as we shall +see later on, to preach Papeiha's gospel of the love of God to the +far-off cannibal Papuans on the steaming shores of New Guinea. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[Footnote 16: P[)a]-pay-ee-h[)a].] + +[Footnote 17: Tay-ee-ay: ta-oo-a: fay-noo-[)a]: nay-ee.] + +[Footnote 18: Va-hee-nay-ee-n[=o].] + +[Footnote 19: M[)a]-kay-[)a].] + +[Footnote 20: T[)a]-p[=a]-ee-roo.] + + + + +CHAPTER VII + +THE DAYBREAK CALL + +_John Williams_ (Date of Incident, 1839) + + +Two men leaned on the rail of the brig _Camden_ as she swept slowly +along the southern side of the Island of Erromanga in the Western +Pacific. A steady breeze filled her sails. The sea heaved in long, +silky billows. The red glow of the rising sun was changing to the +full, clear light of morning. + +The men, as they talked, scanned the coast-line closely. There was the +grey, stone-covered beach, and, behind the beach, the dense bush and +the waving fronds of palms. Behind the palms rose the volcanic hills +of the island. The elder man straightened himself and looked keenly to +the bay from which a canoe was swiftly gliding. + +He was a broad, sturdy man, with thick brown hair over keen watchful +eyes. His open look was fearless and winning. His hands, which grasped +the rail, had both the strength and the skill of the trained mechanic +and the writer. For John Williams could build a ship, make a boat and +sail them both against any man in all the Pacific. He could work with +his hammer at the forge in the morning, make a table at his joiner's +bench in the afternoon, preach a powerful sermon in the evening, and +write a chapter of the most thrilling of books on missionary travel +through the night. Yet next morning would see him in his ship, with +her sails spread, moving out into the open Pacific, bound for a +distant island. + +"It is strange," Williams was saying to his friend Mr. Cunningham, +"but I have not slept all through the night." + +How came it that this man, who for over twenty years had faced +tempests by sea, who had never flinched before perils from savage men +and from fever, on the shores of a hundred islands in the South Seas, +should stay awake all night as his ship skirted the strange island of +Erromanga? + +It was because, having lived for all those years among the coral +islands of the brown Polynesians of the Eastern Pacific, he was now +sailing to the New Hebrides, where the fierce black cannibal islanders +of the Western Pacific slew one another. As he thought of the fierce +men of Erromanga he thought of the waving forests of brown hands he +had seen, the shouts of "Come back again to us!" that he had heard +as he left his own islands. He knew how those people loved him in the +Samoan Islands, but he could not rest while others lay far off who +had never heard the story of Jesus. "I cannot be content," he said, +"within the narrow limits of a single reef." + +But the black islanders were wild men who covered their dark faces +with soot and painted their lips with flaming red, yet their cruel +hearts were blacker than their faces, and their anger more fiery than +their scarlet lips. They were treacherous and violent savages who +would smash a skull by one blow with a great club; or leaping on a man +from behind, would cut through his spine with a single stroke of their +tomahawks, and then drag him off to their cannibal oven. + +John Williams cared so much for his work of telling the islanders +about God their Father, that he lay awake wondering how he could +carry it on among these wild people. It never crossed his mind that +he should hold back to save himself from danger. It was for this work +that he had crossed the world. + +"Let down the whale-boat." His voice rang out without a tremor of +fear. His eyes were on the canoe in which three black Erromangans were +paddling across the bay. As the boat touched the water, he and the +crew of four dropped into her, with Captain Morgan and two friends, +Harris and Cunningham. The oars dipped and flashed in the morning sun +as the whale-boat flew along towards the canoe. When they reached it, +Williams spoke in the dialects of his other islands, but none could +the three savages in the canoe understand. So he gave them some beads +and fish-hooks as a present to show that he was a friend and again his +boat shot away toward the beach. + +They pulled to a creek where a brook ran down in a lovely valley +between two mountains. On the beach stood some Erromangan natives, +with their eyes (half fierce, half frightened) looking out under their +matted jungle of hair. + +Picking up a bucket from the boat, Williams held it out to the chief +and made signs to show that he wished for water from the brook. The +chief took the bucket, and, turning, ran up the beach and disappeared. +For a quarter of an hour they waited; and for half an hour. At last, +when the sun was now high in the sky, the chief returned with the +water. + +Williams drank from the water to show his friendliness. Then his +friend, Harris, swinging himself over the side of the boat, waded +ashore through the cool, sparkling, shallow water and sat down. The +natives ran away, but soon came back with cocoa-nuts and opened them +for him to drink. + + * * * * * + +"See," said Williams, "there are boys playing on the beach; that is a +good sign." + +"Yes," answered Captain Morgan, "but there are no women, and when the +savages mean mischief they send their women away." + +Williams now waded ashore and Cunningham followed him. Captain Morgan +stopped to throw out the anchor of his little boat and then stepped +out and went ashore, leaving his crew of four brown islanders resting +on their oars. + +Williams and his two companions scrambled up the stony beach over +the grey stones and boulders alongside the tumbling brook for over a +hundred yards. Turning to the right they were lost to sight from the +water-edge. Captain Morgan was just following them when he heard a +terrified yell from the crew in the boat. + +Williams and his friends had gone into the bush, Harris in front, +Cunningham next, and Williams last. Suddenly Harris, who had +disappeared in the bush, rushed out followed by yelling savages with +clubs. Harris rushed down the bank of the brook, stumbled, and fell +in. The water dashed over him, and the Erromangans, with the red fury +of slaughter in their eyes, leapt in and beat in his skull with clubs. + +Cunningham, with a native at his heels with lifted club, stooped, +picked up a great pebble and hurled it full at the savage who was +pursuing him. The man was stunned. Turning again, Cunningham leapt +safely into the boat. + +Williams, leaving the brook, had rushed down the beach to leap into +the sea. Reaching the edge of the water, where the beach falls steeply +into the sea, he slipped on a pebble and fell into the water. + +Cunningham, from the boat, hurled stones at the natives rushing at +Williams, who lay prostrate in the water with a savage over him with +uplifted club. The club fell, and other Erromangans, rushing in, beat +him with their clubs and shot their arrows into him until the ripples +of the beach ran red with his blood. + +The hero who had carried the flaming torch of peace on earth to +the savages on scores of islands across the great Pacific Ocean was +dead--the first martyr of Erromanga. + + * * * * * + +When _The Camden_ sailed back to Samoa, scores of canoes put out to +meet her. A brown Samoan guided the first canoe. + +"Missi William," he shouted. + +"He is dead," came the answer. + +The man stood as though stunned. He dropped his paddle; he drooped his +head, and great tears welled out from the eyes of this dark islander +and ran down his cheeks. + +The news spread like wildfire over the islands, and from all +directions came the natives crying in multitudes: + +"Aue,[21] Williamu, Aue, Tama!" (Alas, Williams, Alas, our Father!) + +And the chief Malietoa,[22] coming into the presence of Mrs. Williams, +cried: + +"Alas, Williamu, Williamu, our father, our father! He has turned his +face from us! We shall never see him more! He that brought us the good +word of Salvation is gone! O cruel heathen, they know not what they +did! How great a man they have destroyed!" + +John Williams, the torch-bearer of the Pacific, whom the brown +men loved, the great pioneer, who dared death on the grey beach +of Erromanga, sounds a morning bugle-call to us, a Reveille to our +slumbering camps: + + "The daybreak call, +Hark how loud and clear I hear it sound; Swift to your places, swift +to the head of the army, Pioneers, O Pioneers!"[23] + +FOOTNOTES: + +[Footnote 21: A-oo-ay.] + +[Footnote 22: M[)a]-lee-ay-to-[)a].] + +[Footnote 23: Walt Whitman.] + + + + +CHAPTER VIII + +KAPIOLANI, THE HEROINE OF HAWAII + +_Kapiolani_ + +(Date of Incident, 1824) + + +"Pele[24] the all-terrible, the fire goddess, will hurl her thunder +and her stones, and will slay you," cried the angry priests of +Hawaii.[25] "You no longer pay your sacrifices to her. Once you gave +her hundreds of hogs, but now you give nothing. You worship the new +God Jehovah. She, the great Pele, will come upon you, she and +the Husband of Thunder, with the Fire-Thruster, and the Red-Fire +Cloud-Queen, they will destroy you altogether." + +The listening Hawaiians shuddered as they saw the shaggy priests +calling down the anger of Pele. One of the priests was a gigantic man +over six feet five inches high, whose strength was so terrible that he +could leap at his victims and break their bones by his embrace. + +Away there in the volcanic island[26] in the centre of the greatest +ocean in the world--the Pacific Ocean--they had always as children +been taught to fear the great goddess. + +They were Christians; but they had only been Christians for a short +time, and they still trembled at the name of the goddess Pele, who +lived up in the mountains in the boiling crater of the fiery volcano, +and ruled their island. + +Their fathers had told them how she would get angry, and would pour +out red-hot rivers of molten stone that would eat up all the trees and +people and run hissing into the Pacific Ocean. There to that day was +that river of stone--a long tongue of cold, hard lava--stretching +down to the shore of the island, and here across the trees on the +mountain-top could be seen, even now, the smoke of her anger. +Perhaps, after all, Pele was greater than Jehovah--she was certainly +terrible--and she was very near! + +"If you do not offer fire to her, as you used to do," the priests went +on, "she will pour down her fire into the sea and kill all your fish. +She will fill up your fishing grounds with the pahoehoe[27] (lava), +and you will starve. Great is Pele and greatly to be feared." + +The priests were angry because the preaching of the missionaries had +led many away from the worship of Pele which, of course, meant fewer +hogs for themselves; and now the whole nation on Hawaii, that volcanic +island of the seas, seemed to be deserting her. + +The people began to waver under the threats, but a brown-faced woman, +with strong, fearless eyes that looked out with scorn on Pele priests, +was not to be terrified. + +"It is Kapiolani,[28] the chieftainess," murmured the people to one +another. "She is Christian; will she forsake Jehovah and return to +Pele?" + +Only four years before this, Kapiolani had--according to the custom of +the Hawaiian chieftainesses, married many husbands, and she had given +way to drinking habits. Then she had become a Christian, giving up her +drinking and sending away all her husbands save one. She had thrown +away her idols and now taught the people in their huts the story of +Christ. + +"Pele is nought," she declared, "I will go to Kilawea,[29] the +mountain of the fires where the smoke and stones go up, and Pele shall +not touch me. My God, Jehovah, made the mountain and the fires within +it too, as He made us all." + +So it was noised through the island that Kapiolani, the queenly, would +defy Pele the goddess. The priests threatened her with awful torments +of fire from the goddess; her people pleaded with her not to dare the +fires of Kilawea. But Kapiolani pressed on, and eighty of her people +made up their minds to go with her. She climbed the mountain paths, +through lovely valleys hung with trees, up and up to where the hard +rocky lava-river cut the feet of those who walked upon it. + +Day by day they asked her to go back, and always she answered, "If I +am destroyed you may believe in Pele; if I live you must all believe +in the true God, Jehovah." + +As she drew nearer to the crater she saw the great cloud of smoke that +came up from the volcano and felt the heat of its awful fires. But she +did not draw back. + +As she climbed upward she saw by the side of the path low bushes, and +on them beautiful red and yellow berries, growing in clusters. The +berries were like large currants. + +"It is chelo,"[30] said the priests, "it is Pele's berry. You must not +touch them unless we ask her. She will breathe fire on you." + +Kapiolani broke off a branch from one of the bushes regardless of +the horrified faces of the priests. And she ate the berries, without +stopping to ask the goddess for her permission. + +She carried a branch of the berries in her hand. If she had told them +what she was going to do they would have been frenzied with fear and +horror. + +Up she climbed until the full terrors of the boiling crater of Kilawea +burst on her sight. Before her an immense gulf yawned in the shape of +the crescent moon, eight miles in circumference and over a thousand +feet deep. Down in the smoking hollow, hundreds of feet beneath her, a +lake of fiery lava rolled in flaming waves against precipices of +rock. This ever-moving lake of molten fire is called: "The House of +Everlasting Burning." This surging lake was dotted with tiny mountain +islets, and, from the tops of their little peaks, pyramids of flame +blazed and columns of grey smoke went up. From some of these little +islands streams of blazing lava rolled down into the lake of fire. The +air was filled with the roar of the furnaces of flame. + +Even the fearless Kapiolani stood in awe as she looked. But she did +not flinch, though here and there, as she walked, the crust of the +lava cracked under her feet and the ground was hot with hidden fire. + +She came to the very edge of the crater. To come so far without +offering hogs and fish to the fiery goddess was in itself enough to +bring a fiery river of molten lava upon her. Kapiolani offered nothing +save defiance. Audacity, they thought, could go no further. + +Here, a priestess of Pele came, and raising her hands in threat +denounced death on the head of Kapiolani if she came further. +Kapiolani pulled from her robe a book. In it--for it was her +New Testament--she read to the priestess of the one true, loving +Father-God. + +Then Kapiolani did a thing at which the very limbs of those who +watched trembled and shivered. She went to the edge of the crater and +stepped over onto a jutting rock and let herself down and down toward +the sulphurous burning lake. The ground cracked under her feet and +sulphurous steam hissed through crevices in the rock, as though the +demons of Pele fumed in their frenzy. Hundreds of staring, wondering +eyes followed her, fascinated and yet horrified. + +Then she stood on a ledge of rock, and, offering up prayer and praise +to the God of all, Who made the volcano and Who made her, she cast the +Pele berries into the lake, and sent stone after stone down into the +flaming lava. It was the most awful insult that could be offered to +Pele! Now surely she would leap up in fiery anger, and, with a hail +of burning stones, consume Kapiolani. But nothing happened; and +Kapiolani, turning, climbed the steep ascent of the crater edge and at +last stood again unharmed among her people. She spoke to her people, +telling them again that Jehovah made the fires. She called on them all +to sing to His praise and, for the first time, there rang across the +crater of Kilawea the song of Christians. The power of the priests +was gone, and from that hour the people all over that island who had +trembled and hesitated between Pele and Christ turned to the worship +of our Lord Jesus, the Son of God the Father Almighty. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[Footnote 24: Pay-lay.] + +[Footnote 25: Hah-wye-ee.] + +[Footnote 26: Discovered by Captain Cook in 1778. The first Christian +missionaries landed in 1819. Now the island is ruled by the United +States of America.] + +[Footnote 27: Pa-h[=o]-e-h[=o]-e.] + +[Footnote 28: Kah-pee-[=o]-l[)a]-nee. She was high female chief, in +her own right, of a large district.] + +[Footnote 29: Kil-a-wee-[)a]. The greatest active volcano in the +world.] + +[Footnote 30: Chay-lo.] + + + + +CHAPTER IX + +THE CANOE OF ADVENTURE + +_Elikana_ + +(Date of Incident, 1861) + + + "I know not where His islands lift + Their fronded palms in air; + I only know I cannot drift + Beyond His love and care." + + +I + +Manihiki Island looked like a tiny anchored canoe far away across +the Pacific, as Elikana glanced back from his place at the tiller. He +sang, meantime, quietly to himself an air that still rang in his ears, +the tune that he and his brother islanders had sung in praise of +the Power and Providence of God at the services on Manihiki. For the +Christian people of the Penrhyn group of South Sea Islands had come +together in April, 1861, for their yearly meeting, paddling from the +different quarters in their canoes through the white surge of the +breakers that thunder day and night round the island. + +Elikana looked ahead to where his own island of Rakahanga grew clearer +every moment on the sky-line ahead of them, though each time his craft +dropped into the trough of the sea between the green curves of the +league-long ocean rollers the island was lost from sight. + +He and his six companions were sailing back over the thirty miles +between Manihiki and Rakahanga, two of the many little lonely ocean +islands that stud the Pacific like stars. + +They sailed a strange craft, for it cannot be called raft or canoe +or hut. It was all these and yet was neither. Two canoes, forty-eight +feet long, sailed side by side. Between the canoes were spars, +stretching across from one to the other, lashed to each boat and +making a platform between them six feet wide. On this was built a hut, +roofed with the beautiful braided leaves of the cocoa-nut palm. + +Overhead stretched the infinite sky. Underneath lay thousands of +fathoms of blue-green ocean, whose cold, hidden deeps among the +mountains and valleys of the awful ocean under-world held strange +goblin fish-shapes. And on the surface this hut of leaves and bamboo +swung dizzily between sky and ocean on the frail canoes. And in the +canoes and the hut were six brown Rakahangan men, two women, and a +chubby, dark-eyed child, who sat contented and tired, being lapped to +sleep by the swaying waters. + +Above them the great sail made of matting of fibre, strained in +the breeze that drove them nearer to the haven where they would be. +Already they could see the gleam of the Rakahanga beach with the rim +of silver where the waves broke into foam. Then the breeze dropped. +The fibre-sail flapped uneasily against the mast, while the two little +canvas sails hung loosely, as the wind, with little warning, swung +round, and smiting them in the face began to drive them back into the +ocean again. + +Elikana and his friends knew the sea almost like fish, from the time +they were babies. And they were little troubled by the turn of the +breeze, save that it would delay their homecoming. They tried in vain +to make headway. Slowly, but surely they were driven back from land, +till they could see that there was no other thing but just to turn +about and let her run back to Manihiki. In the canoes were enough +cocoa-nuts to feed them for days if need be, and two large calabashes +of water. + +The swift night fell, but the wind held strong, and one man sat at +the tiller while two others baled out the water that leaked into the +canoes. They kept a keen watch, expecting to sight Manihiki; but when +the dawn flashed out of the sky in the East, where the island should +have been, there was neither Manihiki nor any other land at all. They +had no chart nor compass; north and south and east and west stretched +the wastes of the Pacific for hundreds of leagues. Only here and there +in the ocean, and all unseen to them, like little groups of mushrooms +on a limitless prairie, lay groups of islets. + +They might, indeed, sail for a year without ever sighting any land; +and one storm-driven wave of the great ocean could smite their little +egg-shell craft to the bottom of the sea. + +They gathered together in the hut and with anxious faces talked of +what they might do. They knew that far off to the southwest lay the +islands of Samoa, and Rarotonga. So they set the bows of their craft +southward. Morning grew to blazing noon and fell to evening and night, +and nothing did they see save the glittering sparkling waters of the +uncharted ocean, cut here and there by the cruel fin of a waiting +shark. It was Saturday when they started; and night fell seven times +while their wonderful hut-boat crept southward along the water, till +the following Friday. Then the wind changed, and, springing up from +the south, drove them wearily back once more in their tracks, and then +bore them eastward. + +For another week they drove before the breeze, feeding on the +cocoa-nuts. But the water in the calabashes was gone. Then on +the morning of the second Friday, the fourteenth day of their +sea-wanderings, just when the sun in mid heaven was blazing its +noon-heat upon them and most of the little crew were lying under +the shade of the hut and the sail to doze away the hours of tedious +hunger, they heard the cry of "Land!" and leaping to their feet gazed +ahead at the welcome sight. With sail and paddle they urged the craft +on toward the island. + +Then night fell, and with it squalls of wind and rain came +and buffeted them till they had to forsake the paddles for the +bailing-vessels to keep the boat afloat. Taking down the sails they +spread them flat to catch the pouring rain, and then poured this +precious fresh water--true water of life to them--into their +calabashes. But when morning came no land could be seen anywhere. It +was as though the island had been a land of enchantment and mirage, +and now had faded away. Yet hope sprang in them erect and glad next +day when land was sighted again; but the sea and the wind, as though +driven by the spirits of contrariness, smote them back. + +For two more days they guided the canoe with the tiller and tried to +set her in one steady direction. Then, tired and out of heart, after +sixteen days of ceaseless and useless effort, they gave it up and let +her drift, for the winds and currents to take her where they would. + +At night each man stood in his canoe almost starving and parched with +thirst, with aching back, stooping to dip the water from the canoe and +rising to pour it over the side. For hour after hour, while the calm +moon slowly climbed the sky, each slaved at his dull task. Lulled by +the heave and fall of the long-backed rollers as they slid under the +keels of the canoes, the men nearly dropped asleep where they +stood. The quiet waters crooned to them like a mother singing an old +lullaby--crooned and called, till a voice deep within them said, "It +is better to lie down and sleep and die than to live and fight and +starve." + +Then a moan from the sleeping child, or a sight of a streaming ray +of moonlight on the face of its mother would send that nameless Voice +shivering back to its deep hiding-place--and the man would stoop and +bail again. + +Each evening as it fell saw their anxious eyes looking west and north +and south for land, and always there was only the weary waste of +waters. And as the sun rose, they hardly dared open their eyes to the +unbroken rim of blue-grey that circled them like a steel prison. They +saw the thin edge of the moon grow to full blaze and then fade to a +corn sickle again as days and nights grew to weeks and a whole month +had passed. + +Every morning, as the pearl-grey sea turned to pink and then to +gleaming blue, they knelt on the raft between the canoes and turned +their faces up to their Father in prayer, and never did the sun sink +behind the rim of waters without the sound of their voices rising into +the limitless sky with thanks for safe-keeping. + +Slowly the pile of cocoa-nuts lessened. Each one of them with its +sweet milk and flesh was more precious to them than a golden chalice +set with rubies. The drops of milk that dripped from them were more +than ropes of pearls. + +At last eight Sundays had followed one upon another; and now at the +end of the day there was only the half of one cocoa-nut remaining. +When that was gone--all would be over. So they knelt down under the +cloudless sky on an evening calm and beautiful. They were on that +invisible line in the Great Pacific where the day ends and begins. +Those seven on the tiny craft were, indeed, we cannot but believe, the +last worshippers in all the great world-house of God as Sunday drew +to its end just where they were. Was it to be the last time that they +would pray to God in this life? + +Prayer ended; night was falling. Elikana the leader, who had kept +their spirits from utterly failing, stood up and gazed out with great +anxious eyes before the last light should fail. + +"Look, there upon the edge of the sea where the sun sets. Is it--" He +could hardly dare to believe that it was not the mirage of his weary +brain. But one and another and then all peered out through the swiftly +waning light and saw that indeed it was land. + +Then a squall of wind sprang up, blowing them away from the land. Was +this last hope, by a fine ecstasy of torture, to be dangled before +them and then snatched away? But with the danger came the help; with +the wind came the rain; cool, sweet, refreshing, life-giving water. +Then the squall of wind dropped and changed. They hoisted the one sail +that had not blown to tatters, and drove for land. + +Yet their most awful danger still lay before them. The roar of the +breakers on the cruel coral reef caught their ears. But there was +nothing for it but to risk the peril. They were among the breakers +which caught and tossed them on like eggshells. The scourge of the +surf swept them; a woman, a man--even the child, were torn from them +and ground on the ghastly teeth of the coral. Five were swept over +with the craft into the still, blue lagoon, and landing they fell +prone upon the shore, just breathing and no more, after the giant +buffeting of the thundering rollers, following the long, slow +starvation of their wonderful journey in the hut on the canoes among +"the waters of the wondrous isles." + + "Wake: the silver dusk returning + Up the beach of darkness brims, + And the ship of sunrise burning + Strands upon the eastern rims." + + +II + +Thrown up by the ocean in the darkness like driftwood, Elikana and his +companions lay on the grey shore. Against the dim light of the stars +and beyond the beach of darkness they could see the fronds of +the palms waving. The five survivors were starving, and the green +cocoa-nuts hung above them, filled with food and drink. But their +bodies, broken and tormented as they were by hunger and the battering +breakers, refused even to rise and climb for the food that meant life. +So they lay there, as though dead. + + * * * * * + +Over the ridge of the beach came a man. His pale copper skin shone in +the fresh sunlight of the morning. His quick black eyes were caught by +the sight of torn clothing hanging on a bush. Moving swiftly down the +beach of pounded coral, he saw a man lying with arms thrown out, face +downward. Turning the body over Faivaatala[31] found that the man was +dead. Taking the body in his arms he staggered with it up the beach, +and placed it under the shade of the trees. Returning he found the +living five. Their gaunt bodies and the broken craft on the shore told +him without words the story of their long drifting over the wilderness +of the waters. + +Without stopping to waste words in empty sympathy with starving men, +Faivaatala ran to the nearest cocoa-nut tree and, climbing it, threw +down luscious nuts. Those below quickly knocked off the tops, drank +deep draughts of the cool milk and then ate. Coming down again, +Faivaatala kindled a fire and soon had some fish grilling for these +strange wanderers thrown up on the tiny islet. + +They had no time to thank him before he ran off and swiftly paddled +to Motutala, the island where he lived, to tell the story of these +strange castaways. He came back with other helpers in canoes, and the +five getting aboard were swiftly paddled to Motutala. + +As the canoes skimmed over the surface of the great lagoon Elikana +and his friends could see, spread out in a great semi-circle that +stretched to the horizon, the long low coral islets crowned with palms +which form part of the Ellice Islands. + +The islanders, men, women, and children, ran down the beach to see the +newcomers and soon had set apart huts for them and made them welcome. +Elikana gathered them round him, and began to tell them about the +love of Jesus and the protecting care of God the Father. It all seemed +strange to them, but quickly they learned from him, and he began to +teach them and their children. This went on for four months, till one +day Elikana said: "I must go away and learn more so that I can teach +you more." + +But they had become so fond of Elikana that they said: "No, you must +not leave us," and it was only when he promised to come back with +another teacher to help him, that they could bring themselves to part +with him. So when a ship came to the island to trade in cocoa-nuts +Elikana went aboard and sailed to Samoa to the London Missionary +Society's training college there at Malua. + + * * * * * + +"A ship! A ship!" The cry was taken up through the island, and the +people running down the beach saw a large sailing vessel. Boats put +down and sculls flashed as sailors pulled swiftly to the shore. + +They landed and the people gathered round to see and to hear what they +would say. + +"Come onto our ship," said these men, who had sailed there from Peru, +"and we will show you how you can be rich with many knives and much +calico." + +But the islanders shook their heads and said they would stay where +they were. Then a wicked white man named Tom Rose, who lived on the +island and knew how much the people were looking forward to the day +when Elikana would come back to teach them, went to the traders and +whispered what he knew to them. + +So the Peruvian traders, with craft shining in their eyes, turned +again to the islanders and said: "If you will come with us, we will +take you where you will be taught all that men can know about God." + +At this the islanders broke out into glad cries and speaking to one +another said: "Let us go and learn these things." + +The day came for sailing, and as the sun rose, hundreds of brown feet +were running to the beach, children dancing with excitement, women +saying "Goodbye" to their husbands--men, who for the first time in +all their lives were to leave their tiny islet for the wonderful world +beyond the ocean. + +So two hundred of them went on board. The sails were hoisted and they +went away never to return; sailed away not to learn of Jesus, but to +the sting of the lash and the shattering bullet, the bondage of the +plantations, and to death at the hands of those merciless beasts of +prey, the Peruvian slavers. + + * * * * * + +Years passed and a little fifty-ton trading vessel came to anchor +outside the reef. One man and then another and another got down into +the little boat and pulled for the shore. Elikana had returned. The +women and children ran down to meet him--but few men were there, for +nearly all had gone. + +"Where is this one? Where is the other?" cried Elikana, with sad face +as he looked around on them. + +"Gone, gone," came the answer; "carried away by the man-stealing +ships." + +Elikana turned to the white missionary who had come with him, to ask +what they could do. + +"We will leave Joane and his wife here," replied Mr. Murray. + + * * * * * + +So a teacher from Samoa stayed there and taught the people, while +Elikana went to begin work in an island near by. + +To-day a white lady missionary has gone to live in the Ellice Islands, +and the people are Christians, and no slave-trader can come to snatch +them away. + +So there sailed over the waters of the wondrous isles first the boat +of sunrise and then the ship of darkness, and last of all the ship +of the Peace of God. The ship of darkness had seemed for a time to +conquer, but her day is now over; and to-day on that beach, as the +sunlight brims over the edge of the sea, and a new Lord's Day dawns, +you may hear the islanders sing their praise to the Light of the +World, Who shines upon them and keeps them safe. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[Footnote 31: F[)a]-ee-v[)a] t[)a] l[=a].] + + + + +CHAPTER X + +THE ARROWS OF SANTA CRUZ + +_Bishop Patteson_ + +(Date of Incident--August 15th, 1864) + + +The brown crew of _The Southern Cross_ breathed freely again as the +anchor swung into place and the schooner began to nose her way out +into the open Pacific. They were hardened to dangers, but the Island +of Tawny Cannibals had strained their nerve, by its hourly perils +from club and flying arrow. The men were glad to see their ship's bows +plunge freely again through the long-backed rollers. + +As they set her course to the Island of Santa Cruz the crew talked +together of the men of the island they had left. In his cabin sat a +great bronzed bearded man writing a letter to his own people far away +on the other side of the world. Here are the very words that he wrote +as he told the story of one of the dangers through which they had just +passed on the island: + + "As I sat on the beach with a crowd about me, most of them + suddenly jumped up and ran off. Turning my head I saw a man (from + the boat they saw two) coming to me with club uplifted. I remained + sitting and held out a few fish-hooks to him, but one or two men + jumped up and, seizing him by the waist, forced him off. + + "After a few minutes I went back to the boat. I found out that + a poor fellow called Moliteum was shot dead two months ago by a + white trader for stealing a bit of calico. The wonder was, not + that they wanted to avenge the death of their kinsman, but that + others should have prevented it. How could they possibly know that + I was not one of the wicked set? Yet they did.... The plan of + going among the people unarmed makes them regard me as a friend." + +Then he says of these men who had just tried to kill him: "The people, +though constantly fighting, and cannibals and the rest of it, are to +me very attractive." + +The ship sailed on till they heard ahead of them the beating of the +surf on the reef of Santa Cruz. Behind the silver line of the breakers +the waving fronds of her palms came into sight. They put _The Southern +Cross_ in, cast anchor, and let a boat down from her side. Into the +boat tumbled a British sailor named Pearce, a young twenty-year-old +Englishman named Atkin, and three brown South-Sea Island boys from the +missionary training college for native teachers on Norfolk Island, +and their leader, Bishop Patteson, the white man who, having faced the +clubs of savages on a score of islands, never flinched from walking +into peril again to lead them to know of "the best Man in the world, +Jesus Christ." These brown boys were young helpers of Bishop Patteson. +And one of them especially, Fisher Young, would have died for his +great white leader gladly. They were like father and son. + +The reef, covered at mid-tide with curling waters mottled with the +foam of the broken waves, was alive with men; while the beach beyond +was black with crowds of the wild islanders who had come down to see +the strange visitors from the ship. The four men sculled the boat +on to the edge of the reef and then rested on their oars as Patteson +swung himself over the side into the cool water. He waded across the +reef between the hosts of savages, and in every hand was a club or +spear or a six-foot wooden bow with an arrow ready to notch in its +bamboo string. + +Patteson had come to make friends with them. So he entered a dark +wattled house and sat down to talk. The doorway was filled with +the faces of wondering men. As he looked on them a strange gleam of +longing came into his eyes and a smile of great tenderness softened +the strength of his brown face--the longing and the tenderness of +a shepherd looking for wandering sheep who are lost on the wild +mountains of the world. + +Then he rose, left the house, and went back to the boat. The water was +now one seething cauldron of men--walking, splashing, swimming. Some, +as Patteson climbed into his boat, caught hold of the gunwale and +could hardly be made to loosen their hold. The four young fellows in +the boat swung their oars and got her under way, but they had made +barely half a dozen strokes when, without warning, an arrow whizzed +through the air into the boat. A cloud of arrows followed. + +Six canoes were now filled with savage Santa Cruzans, who surrounded +the boat and joined in the shooting. Patteson, who was in the stern +between his boys and the bowmen, had not shipped the rudder, so +he held it up, as the boat shot ahead of the canoes, to shield off +arrows. + +Turning round to see whither his now rudderless boat was being pulled, +he saw that they were heading for a little bay in the reef, which +would have wrecked their hopes of safety. + +"Pull, port oars, pull on steadily," shouted Patteson; and they made +for _The Southern Cross_. + +As he called to them he saw Pearce, the young British sailor, lying +between the thwarts with the long shaft of an arrow in his chest, and +a young Norfolk Islander with an arrow under his left eye. The +arrows flew around them in clouds, and suddenly Fisher Young--the +nineteen-year-old Polynesian whom he loved as a son--who was pulling +stroke, gave a faint scream. He was shot through the left wrist. + +"Look out, sir! close to you," cried one of his crew. But the arrows +were all around him. All the way to the schooner the canoes skimmed +over the water chasing the boat. The four youths, including the +wounded, pulled on bravely and steadily. At last they reached the ship +and climbed on board, while the canoes--fearing vengeance from the men +on the schooner--turned and fled. + +Once aboard, Bishop Patteson knelt by the side of Pearce, drew out +the arrow which had run more than five inches deep into his chest, +and bound up his wound. Turning to Fisher, he found that the arrow had +gone through the wrist and had broken off in the wound. Taking hold +of the point of the arrow where it stood out on the lower side of the +wrist, Patteson pulled it through, though the agony of the boy was +very great. + +The arrows were wooden-headed and not poisoned. The wounds seemed to +be healing, but a few days later Fisher said, "I can't make out what +makes my jaws feel so stiff." + +Fisher Young was the grandson of fierce, foul Pitcairn Island +cannibals, and was himself a brave and pure Christian lad. He had +faced death with his master many times on coral reefs, in savage +villages, on wild seas and under the clubs of Pacific islanders. Now +he was face to face with something more difficult than a swift +and dangerous adventure--the slow, dying agony of lockjaw. He grew +steadily worse in spite of everything that Patteson could do. + +Near to the end he said faintly, "Kiss me; I am very glad I was doing +my duty. Tell my father that I was in the path of duty, and he will be +so glad. Poor Santa Cruz people!" + +He spoke in that way of the people who had killed him. The young brown +hero lies to-day, as he would have wished, in the port that was named +after the Bishop whom he loved, and who was his hero, Port Patteson. + +"I loved him," said Patteson, "as I think I never loved anyone else." +Fisher's love to his Bishop had been that of a youth to the hero whom +he worships, but Patteson had led that brown islander still further, +for he had taught the boy to love the Hero of all heroes, Jesus +Christ. + + + + +CHAPTER XI + +FIVE KNOTS IN A PALM LEAF + +_The Death of Patteson_ + +(Date of Incident, September 20th, 1871) + + +The masts of the schooner _The Southern Cross_ swung gently to and +fro across the darkening sky as the long, calm rollers of the Pacific +slipped past her hull. Her bows spread only a ripple of water as the +slight breeze bore her slowly towards the island of Nukapu.[32] + +On deck stood a group of men, their brown faces turned to a tall, +bearded man. As the light of the setting sun gleamed on his bronze +face, it kindled his brave eyes and showed the grave smile that played +about the corners of his mouth. They all looked on him with that +worship which strong men give to a hero, who can be both brave and +kindly. But "he wist not that his face shone" for them. + +Patteson read to these young men from a Book; and the words that +he read were these: "And they stoned Stephen, calling upon God and +saying, 'Lord Jesus, receive my spirit.' And he knelt down and cried, +with a loud voice, 'Lord, lay not this sin to their charge'; and when +he had said this, he fell asleep." + +When he had spoken to them strongly on these words and said how it may +come to any man who worships Jesus to suffer so, Bishop Patteson and +all except the man on watch went to their sleep. The South Sea Island +men and the young Englishman who were there remembered all their +lives what Patteson had said that evening; partly because these men +themselves had seen him brave such a death as Stephen's again and +again, and, indeed, they had themselves stood in peril by his side +face to face with threatening savages, but even more because of the +adventure that came to them on the next day. + +At dawn they sighted land, and by eleven o'clock they were so near +that they could see, shimmering in the heat of the midsummer sun, the +white beach of coral sand and the drooping palms that make all the +island of Nukapu green.[33] Looking out under their hands to the +island, the men aboard _The Southern Cross_ could see four great +canoes, with their sails set, hovering like hawks about the circling +reef which lay between them and the island. On the reef the blue waves +beat and broke into a gleaming line of cool white foam. + +The slight breeze was hardly strong enough to help the ship to make +the island. It was as though she knew the danger of that day and would +not carry Patteson and his men into the perils that lay hidden behind +the beauty of that island of Nukapu. + +Patteson knew the danger. He knew that, but a little time before their +visit, white men had come in a ship, had let down their boats and +rowed to the men of the island, had pretended to make friends, and +then, shooting some and capturing others, had sped back to the ship, +carrying off the captives to work for them on the island of Fiji. The +law of the savages of the islands was "Blood for blood." And to +them all white men belonged to one tribe. The peril that lay before +Patteson was that they might attack him in revenge for the foul crime +of those white traders. + +Just before noon the order was given to lower a boat from _The +Southern Cross_. Patteson went down into it, and sat in the stern, +while Mr. Atkin (his English helper), Stephen Taroniara, James Minipa, +and John Nonono came with him to row. The boat swung toward the +reef. Between the reef and the island lay two miles of the blue and +glittering lagoon. + +By the time the boat reached the reef six canoes full of warriors had +come together there. The tide was not high enough to float the boat +across the reef. The Nukapuan natives said they would haul the boat up +on to the reef, but the Bishop did not think it wise to consent. Then +two of the savages said to "Bisipi," as they called the Bishop: + +"Will you come into our canoe?" + +Without a moment's hesitation, knowing that confidence was the best +way to win them, he stepped into the canoe. As he entered they gave +him a basket with yams and other fruit in it. + +As the tide was low, the Bishop and the savages were obliged to wade +over the reef, dragging the canoe across to the deeper lagoon within. +The boat's crew of _The Southern Cross_ stopped in the outer sea, +drifting on the tide with the other four Nukapu canoes. They watched +the Bishop cross the lagoon in the canoe and land far off upon the +beach. Then he went from their sight. + +The brown men and the white man in the boat were trying to talk to the +islanders in the remaining canoes outside the reef, when suddenly a +savage jumped up in the nearest canoe, not ten yards from them, and +called out in his native language: + +"Have you anything like this?" + +He drew his bow to his ear and shot a yard arrow. His companions +in the other canoes leapt to their feet and sent showers of arrows +whizzing at the men in the boat, shouting as they aimed: + +"This for New Zealand man, this for Bernu man, this for Motu man." + +Pulling away with all their speed, Patteson's men were soon out of +range, but an arrow had nailed John Nonono's cap to his head. Stephen +lay in the bottom of the boat with six arrows in his chest and +shoulders. Mr. Atkin, the white man, had one in his left shoulder. + +They reached the ship and were helped on board. The arrow head was +drawn out from Mr. Atkin's shoulder, and was found to be made of a +sharpened human bone. No sooner was the arrow head out than Mr. Atkin +leapt back into the boat, insisting on going back to find Patteson. +He alone knew how and where the reef could be crossed on the tide that +was now rising. + +So they got a boat's crew from the ship, put a beaker full of water +and some food in the boat, and pulled toward the reef. + +At half-past four the tide was high enough to carry them across, and +they rowed over, looking through their glasses anxiously at the white +shore which was lined with brown figures. A canoe rowed out towards +them bringing another canoe in tow. As the boat went towards the +island, one canoe cast off the other, and went back; the second canoe +drifted towards them slowly on the still waters of the blue lagoon. + +As it came nearer they saw that in the middle of it lay Something +motionless, covered with matting. They pulled alongside, leaned over +the canoe, and lifted into their boat--the body of Patteson. The empty +canoe now drifted away. + +A yell went up from the savages on the shore. The boat was pulled +towards the ship and then the body lifted up and laid on the deck. It +had been rolled in the native matting as a shroud, tied at the head +and feet. They unrolled the mat, and there on the face of the dead +Bishop was still that wonderful, patient and winning smile, as of one +who at the moment when his head was beneath the uplifted club said, +"Lord, lay not this sin to their charge," and had then fallen asleep. + +There was a palm leaf fastened over his breast. In its long leaflets +five knots were made. On the body, in the head, the side, and the +legs were five wounds. And five men in Fiji were at work in the +plantations--men captured from Nukapu by brutal white traders. + +It was the vengeance of the savage--the call of "blood for blood"; and +the death of Patteson lies surely upon the head of those white traders +who carried death and captivity to the white coral shore of Nukapu. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[Footnote 32: Noo-k[)a]-poo.] + +[Footnote 33: Midsummer day on the Equator, September 21.] + + + + +CHAPTER XII + +THE BOY OF THE ADVENTUROUS HEART + +_Chalmers, the Boy_ + +(Born 1841, martyred 1901) + + +The rain had poured down in such torrents that even the hardy boys of +Inverary in Scotland had been driven indoors. Now the sky had cleared, +and the sun was shining again after the great storm. The boys were out +again, and a group of them were walking toward the little stream of +Aray which tumbled through the glen down to Loch Fyne. But the stream +was "little" no longer. + +As the boys came near to the place called "The Three Bridges," where +a rough wooden bridge crossed the torrent, they walked faster towards +the stream, for they could hear it roaring in a perfect flood which +shook the timbers of the bridge. The great rainfall was running from +the hills through a thousand streamlets into the main torrent. + +Suddenly there came a shout and a scream. A boy dashed toward them +saying that one of his schoolmates had fallen into the rushing water, +and that the full spate of the Aray was carrying him away down to the +sea. The boys stood horrified--all except one, who rushed forward, +pulling off his jacket as he ran, leapt down the bank to the lower +side of the bridge, and, clinging to the timber, held to it with one +arm while he stretched out the other as the drowning boy was being +carried under the bridge, seized him, and held him tightly with his +left hand. + +James Chalmers--the boy who had gone to the rescue--though only ten +years old, could swim. Letting go of the bridge, while still holding +the other boy with one arm, he allowed the current to carry them both +down to where the branches hung over the bank to the water's surface. +Seizing one of these, he dragged himself and the boy toward the bank, +whence he was helped to dry land by his friends. + +The boy whom young James Chalmers had saved belonged to a rival +school. Often the wild-blooded boys (like their fierce Highland +ancestors who fought clan against clan) had attacked the boys of this +school and had fought them. James, whose father was a stonemason and +whose mother was a Highland lassie born near Loch Lomond, was the +leader in these battles, but all the fighting was forgotten when he +heard that a boy was in danger of his life, and so he had plunged in +as swiftly to save him as he would have done for any boy from his own +school. + +We do not hear that James was clever at lessons in his school, but +when there was anything to be done, he had the quickest hand, the +keenest eye, the swiftest mind, and the most daring heart in all the +village. + +Though he loved the hills and glens and the mountain torrent, James, +above everything else, revelled in the sea. One day a little later on, +after the rescue of his friend from drowning, James stood on the +quay at Inverary gazing across the loch and watching the sails of the +fishing boats, when he heard a loud cry. + +He looked round. There, on the edge of the quay, stood a mother +wringing her hands and calling out that her child had fallen into the +water and was drowning. James ran along the quay, and taking off his +coat as he dashed to the spot, he dived into the water and, seizing +the little child by the dress, drew him ashore. The child seemed dead, +but when they laid him on the quayside, and moved his arms, his breath +began to come and go again and the colour returned to his cheeks. + +Twice Chalmers had saved others from drowning. Three times he himself, +as the result of his daring adventures in the sea, was carried home, +supposed to be dead by drowning. + +At another time he, with two other boys, thrust a tarred herring-box +into the sea from the sandy shore between the two rocky points where +the western sea came up the narrow Loch Fyne. + +"Look at James!" shouted one of the boys to his companions as Chalmers +leapt into the box. + +It almost turned over, and he swayed and rolled and then steadied as +the box swung out from the shore. + +The other boys, laughing and shouting, towed him and his boat through +the sea as they walked along the shore. Suddenly, as they talked, they +staggered forward. The cord had snapped and they fell on the sand, +still laughing, but when they stood up again the laughter died on +their lips. James was being swiftly carried out by the current to +sea--and in a tarred herring-box! He had no paddle, and his hands were +of no effect in trying to move the boat toward the shore. + +The boys shouted. There came an answering cry from the door of a +cottage in the village. A fisherman came swinging down the beach, +strode to his boat, took the two boys into it, and taking an oar +himself and giving the other to the two boys, they pulled out with the +tide. They reached James and rescued him just as the herring-box was +sinking. He went home to the little cottage where he lived, and his +mother gave him a proper thrashing. + +Some of James' schoolfellows used to go on Sundays to a school in +Inverary. He made up his mind to join them. The class met in the +vestry of the United Presbyterian Church there. After their lesson +they went together into the church to hear a closing address. Mr. +Meikle, the minister, who was also superintendent of the school, one +afternoon took from his pocket a magazine (a copy of the "Presbyterian +Record"). From this magazine he read a letter from a brave missionary +in the far-off cannibal islands of Fiji. The letter told of the savage +life there and of how, already, the story of Jesus was leading the men +no longer to drag their victims to the cannibal ovens, nor to pile +up the skulls of their enemies so as to show their own bravery. The +writer said they were beginning happier lives in which the awful +terror of the javelin and the club, and the horror of demons and +witches was gone. + +When Mr. Meikle had finished reading the magazine he folded it up +again and then looked round on all the boys in the school, saying: + +"I wonder if there is a boy here this afternoon who will become a +missionary, and by and by bring the Gospel to other such cannibals as +those?" + +Even as the minister said those words, the adventurous heart of young +Chalmers leapt in reply as he said to himself, "Yes, God helping me, I +will." + +He was just a freckled, dark-haired boy with hazel eyes, a boy +tingling with the joy of the open air and with the love of the heave +and flow of the sea. But when he made up his mind to do a thing, +however great the difficulties or dangers, James usually carried it +through. + +So it came about that some years later in 1866, having been trained +and accepted by the London Missionary Society, Chalmers, as a young +man, walked across the gangway to a fine new British-built clipper +ship. It had been christened _John Williams_ after the great hero +missionary[34] who gave up his life on the beach of Erromanga. + +This boy, who loved the sea and breathed deep with joy in the face of +adventure and peril, had set his face towards the deep, long breakers +of the far-off Pacific. He was going to carry to the South Seas the +story of the Hero and Saviour Whom he had learnt to love within the +sound of the Atlantic breakers that dashed and fretted against the +rocks of Western Scotland. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[Footnote 34: See Chapter VII.] + + + + +CHAPTER XIII + +THE SCOUT OF PAPUA[35] + +_Chalmers, the Friend_ + +(Date of Incident, about 1893) + + +The quick puffing of the steam launch _Miro_ was the only sound to +break the stillness of the mysterious Aivai[36] River. On the launch +were three white people--two men and a woman. They were the first who +had ever broken the silence of that stream. + +They gazed out under the morning sun along the dead level of the +Purari[37] delta, for they had left behind them the rolling breakers +of the Gulf of Papua in order to explore this dark river. Away to the +south rolled the blue waters between this vast island of New Guinea +and Northern Australia. + +They saw on either bank the wild tangle of twisted mangroves with +their roots higher than a man, twined together like writhing serpents. +They peered through the thick bush with its green leaves drooping down +to the very water's edge. But mostly they looked ahead over the bow of +the boat along the green-brown water that lay ahead of them, dappled +with sunlight under the trees. For they were facing an unknown +district where savage Papuans lived--as wild as hawks. They did not +know what adventure might meet them at the next bend of the river. + +"Splendid! Splendid!" cried one of the white men, a bearded giant +whose flashing eyes and mass of brown hair gave him the look of a +lion. "We will make it the white woman's peace. Bravo!" And he turned +to Mrs. Abel, whose face lit up with pleasure at his happy excitement. + +"No white man has even seen the people of Iala,"[38] said Tamate--for +that was the native name given to James Chalmers, the Scottish boy +who had now gone out to far-off Papua as a missionary.[39] "Iko +there"--and he pointed to a stalwart Papuan who stood by the +funnel--"is the only one of us who has seen them and can speak their +tongue. + +"It is dangerous for your wife to go among these people," he went on, +turning to Mr. Abel, "but she will help us more than anything else +possibly can to make friends." And Mr. Abel nodded, for he knew that +when the Papuans mean to fight they send their women and children +away; and that when they saw Mrs. Abel they would believe that the +white people came as friends and not enemies. + +As the steamer carried this scouting party against the swift current +up the river toward Iala, Tamate wanted to find how far up the river +the village lay. So he beckoned Iko to him. Tamate did not know a word +of the dialect which Iko spoke, but he had with him an old wrinkled +Papuan, who knew Iko's language, and who looked out with worshipping +eyes at the great white man who was his friend. So Tamate, wishing +to ask Iko how far away the village of Iala was, spoke first to old +Vaaburi,[40] and then Vaaburi asked Iko. + +Iko stretched out his dark forefinger, and made them understand that +that finger meant the length of their journey to Iala. Then with his +other hand he touched his forefinger under the second joint to show +how far they had travelled on their journey--not a third of the +distance. + +Hour after hour went by, as the steamer drove her way through the +swiftly running waters of Aivai. And ever Iko pointed further and +further up his finger until at last they had reached his claw-like +nail. By three o'clock the middle of the nail was reached. The eyes of +all looked anxiously ahead. At every curve of the river they strained +their sight to see if Iala were in view. How would these savage people +welcome the white men and woman in their snorting great canoe that had +no paddles, nor oars? There came a sharp bend in the river, and then +a long straight reach of water lying between the forest-covered banks. +Suddenly Iko called out, and Tamate and Mr. and Mrs. Abel peered +ahead. + +The great trees of the river nearly met above their heads, and only a +narrow strip of sky could be seen. + +There in the distance were the houses of Iala, close clustered on both +banks of the steaming river. They stood on piles of wood driven into +the mud, like houses on stilts, and their high-pointed bamboo roofs +stood out over the river like gigantic poke-bonnets. + +"Slow," shouted Tamate to the engineer. The _Miro_ slackened speed +till she just stemmed the running current and no more. + +"It will be a bit of a shock to them," said Tamate to his friends, +"to see this launch. We will give them time to get their wits together +again." + +Looking ahead through their glasses, the white men and Mrs. Abel could +see canoes swiftly crossing and re-crossing the river and men rushing +about. + +"Full speed ahead," cried Tamate again, and then after a few +revolutions of the engine, "Go slow. It will never do," he said, "to +drop amongst them while they are in that state. They will settle down +presently." And then, as he looked up at the sky between the waving +branches of the giant trees, "we have got a good two hours' daylight +yet," he said. + +Life and death to Tamate and his friends hung in the balance, for +they were three people unarmed, and here were dark savage warriors in +hundreds. Everything depended on his choosing just the right moment +for going into the midst of these people. So he watched them closely, +knitting his shaggy eyebrows together as he measured their state of +mind by their actions. He was the Scout of Christ in Papua, and he +must be watchful and note all those things that escape most men but +mean so much to trained eyes. Tamate seemed to have a strange gift +that made him able, even where other men could tell nothing, to say +exactly when it was, and when it was not, possible to go among a wild, +untouched tribe. + +Now the bewildered Ialan savages had grown quieter. Tamate called to +the engineer to drive ahead once more. Slowly the launch forged her +way through the running waters and drew nearer and nearer to the +centre of Iala. + +There on either side stood the houses in long rows stretching up the +river, and on the banks hundreds of men stood silent and as still as +trees. Their canoes lay half in and half out of the water ready for +instant launching. In each canoe stood its crew erect and waiting. All +the women and children had been sent away, for these men were out to +fight. They did not know whether this strange house upon the water +with the smoke coming from its chimney was the work of gods or devils. +Still they stood there to face the strange thing and, if need be, to +fight. + +Brown Iko stood in the bows of the _Miro_; near him stood Tamate. Then +the engine stopped and the anchor was dropped overboard. The savages +stood motionless. Not a weapon could be seen. The engineer, hearing +the anchor-chain rattle through the hole, blew the steam-whistle in +simple high spirits. As the shriek of the whistle echoed under +the arches of the trees, with the swiftness of lightning the Ialan +warriors swung their long bows from behind their bodies. Without +stooping each caught up an arrow that stood between his toes and with +one movement fixed it and pulled the bamboo strings of their black +bows till the notch of the arrows touched their ears. A hundred arrows +were aimed at the hearts of Tamate and Mr. and Mrs. Abel. + +Swiftly Iko stood upon the bulwark of the _Miro_, and shouted just one +word at the top of his voice. It was the Ialan word for "Peace." And +again he shouted it, and yet again "Peace, Peace!" + +Then he cried out "Pouta!"[41] It was the name of the chief of these +savages. They had but to let the arrows from their bows and all would +have been over. There was silence. What order would Pouta give? + +Then from the bank on their right came the sound of an answering +voice. In a flash every arrow was taken from its bow, and again not a +weapon was to be seen. + +Iko then called out again to Pouta, and Tamate told Iko what he was to +say to his friend, the savage chief. For some minutes the conversation +went on. At last Iko came to the point of asking for a canoe to take +them ashore. + +Chief Pouta hesitated. Then he gave his command, and a large canoe was +launched from the bank into the river and slowly paddled towards the +_Miro_. + +As the canoe came towards them, Tamate turned to Mrs. Abel, who had +stood there without flinching with all the arrows pointed toward the +boat; and he spoke words like these: "Your bravery is our strength. +Seeing you makes them believe that we come for peace. You give them +greater confidence in us than all our words." + +By this time the canoe had paddled alongside the launch. Tamate went +over the side first into the canoe, then Mrs. Abel, then Mr. Abel, +Iko, and Vaaburi. The canoe pushed off again and paddled toward the +landing place, where a crowd of Ialan savages filled every inch of +space. + +As soon as the bow of the canoe touched the bank, Tamate, without +hesitating a second, stepped out with Iko. Together they walked up to +the chief Pouta, and Tamate put his arms around him in an embrace of +peace. + +Pouta, standing on a high place, shouted to all his warriors. But none +of the white people knew a word of his meaning. + +Look where they would, in every direction, this white woman and the +two men were completely surrounded by an unbroken mass of wild and +armed savages, who stood gazing upon the strange apparitions in their +midst. + +Tamate, without a pause, perfectly calm, and showing no signs of fear, +spoke to Pouta and his men through old Vaaburi and Iko. + +"We have come," he said, "so that we may be friends. We have come +without weapons. We have brought with us a woman of our tribe, for +we come in peace. We are strangers. But we come with great things to +tell. Some day we will come again and will stay with you and will tell +you all our message. To-day we come only to make friends." + +Then Iko closed his eyes and prayed in the language of the people of +Iala. + +Turning to his friends when the prayer was over, Tamate said quietly: +"Now, we must get aboard as quickly as we possibly can. My plan for a +first visit is to come, make friends and get away again swiftly. When +we are gone they will talk to one another about us. Next time we come +we shall meet friends." + +So they walked down through an avenue of armed Papuans to the bank, +and got into the canoe again: the paddles flashed as she drove swiftly +through the water toward the launch. As they climbed her side, the +anchor was weighed, the _Miro_ swung round, her engines started, and, +carried down by the swift stream, she slipped past the packed masses +of silent men who lined the banks. + +It is a great thing to be a pathfinder through a country which no +man has penetrated before. But it is a greater thing to do as these +missionary-scouts did on their journey up the Aivai and find a path +of friendship into savage lives. To do that was the greatest joy in +Tamate's life. For he said, when he had spent many years in this work: + +"Recall the twenty-one years, give me back all its experiences, give +me its shipwrecks, give me its standings in the face of death, give +it me surrounded with savages with spears and clubs, give it me back +again with spears flying about me, with the club knocking me to the +ground, give it me back, and I will still be your missionary." + +FOOTNOTES: + +[Footnote 35: Pa-poo-[)a].] + +[Footnote 36: A-ee-v[)a]-ee.] + +[Footnote 37: Poo-r[)a]-ree.] + +[Footnote 38: Ee-[)a]-l[)a].] + +[Footnote 39: He had spent some sixteen years in the South Sea Island +of Rarotonga and had in 1877 become a pioneer among the cannibals of +Papua (New Guinea).] + +[Footnote 40: V[=a][=a]-boo-ree.] + +[Footnote 41: Poo-o-t[)a].] + + + + +CHAPTER XIV + +A SOUTH SEA SAMARITAN + +_Ruatoka_ (Date of Incident, about 1878) + + +It was a dark night and silent. The swish and lapping of the waters on +the Port Moresby beach on the southern shore of the immense island of +New Guinea, filled the air with a quiet hush of expectation. + +In a little white house sat a tall, dark man with his wife. The man +was Ruatoka. If you had asked "Who is Ruatoka?" of all the Papuans for +miles around Port Moresby, they would have wondered at your ignorance. +"Ruatoka," they would have told you, was a "Jesus man." He walked +among their villages, and did not fear them when they threatened him +with spears and clubs. He gave them medicines when they were ill, and +nursed them. He spoke strong words to them which made their hearts +turn to water within them when he showed that they did wrong. He often +stopped them from fighting. + +Ruatoka, with his wife, had sailed from the South Sea Islands with +Tamate,[42] who was to them their great hero. + +"My fathers of old were heathen, savage men on the island of Mangaia," +he would say. "The white men came to them and brought the story +of Jesus. Now we are happy. But we, too, must go to the men of New +Guinea, just as the white men came to us. To-day the New Guinea +Papuans are savage cannibals and heathen. To-morrow they will know +Jesus and be as happy as we are." + +So Ruatoka had been trained as a teacher and preacher as well as a +house-builder and carpenter; and his wife was taught how to teach +children as well as good housekeeping. + +This was the brown man, Ruatoka, who sat that night in his little +house at Port Moresby on the shore behind the great reef of Papua. +Suddenly there came a knock at his door. The door opened, and the +black, frightened faces of Papuans, with staring eyes, looked at him. + +"What is the matter?" he asked. + +And they told him that, as they came at sunset along the path from the +people of Larogi to Port Moresby, they found by the side of the path a +white man. "He was dying," they said. "We were afraid to touch him. If +we touched him and he died, his ghost would haunt us for evermore." + +Ruatoka stood up at once and reached for his lantern, and turning to +the men said: + +"Come and guide me to the place." + +They said, "No, we are afraid of the demon spirit. It is night. The +man will die. We are afraid of the spirits. We will not go." + +Ruatoka's father had told him when he was a boy how his own people in +the years before had dreaded the spirit-demons of Mangaia, but that +he must learn that there were no spirits to be dreaded; that one great +Father-Spirit ruled above all, and would take care of His children, +and that all those children must love one another. + +So Rua, as they called him, knowing that the white man who lay sick +by the roadside in the night, though of another colour, was yet a +brother, and knowing that no demon spirit could harm him in the dark, +lighted his lantern, poured water into a bottle, took a long piece of +cloth, folded it up, and started out under the stars. + +He walked for mile after mile up steep hills and down into valleys +along the path; but nothing did he hear save the cry of a night bird. +At last he had gone five miles, and was wondering whether he could +ever find the sick man (for the long grass towered up on either side +and all was still), when he heard a low moaning. Listening intently he +found the direction of the sound, and then moved towards it. He found +there, at the side of the path, a white man named Neville, nearly +dead. He was moaning with the pain of the fever, yet unconscious. + +Taking his bottle, Ruatoka poured a little water down the throat of +the man. He then took the long piece of cloth, wound it round Neville, +took the two ends in his hands, and stooping, he pulled and strained +with all his great strength, until at last Neville lay like a sack +upon his shoulders. Staggering along, Ruatoka climbed the hills that +rose 300 feet high. Again and again he was bound to rest, for the man +on his shoulders was as heavy as Ruatoka himself. He tottered down the +hill path, and at last, just as the first light of dawn was breaking +over the eastern hills, Ruatoka staggered into his home, laid the +sick man upon the only bed he had, and then himself laid down upon the +floor, wearied almost to death. There he slept while his wife nursed +and tended the fever-stricken Neville back to life. + + * * * * * + +Over a thousand years before that day Wilfrid[43] had brought life and +joy to the starving Saxons of the South coast of England. A hundred +years before that day white men, the great-great-grandchildren of +those Saxons, had started out in _The Duff_ and, sailing across the +world, had taken life and joy in the place of the terror of demons and +the death by the club to the men of the Islands of the Seas. + +Now Ruatoka, the South Sea islander, having in his heart the same +brave spirit of the Good Shepherd--that spirit of the Good Samaritan, +of help and preparedness, of courage and of chivalry, had carried life +and joy back to the North Sea islander, the Briton who had fallen by +the roadside in Papua. + +Ruatoka was a brown Greatheart. It was with him as it must be with all +brave sons who serve that great Captain, Jesus Christ: he wanted to be +in the front of the battle. When the great Tamate was killed and eaten +by the cannibals of Goaribari, Ruatoka wrote a letter to a missionary +who lived and still lives in Papua. This is the end of the letter: + +"Hear my wish. It is a great wish. The remainder of my strength I +would spend in the place where Tamate was killed. In that village I +would live. In that place where they killed men, Jesus Christ's name +and His word I would teach to the people that they may become Jesus' +children. My wish is just this. You know it. I have spoken. + + RUATOKA." + +FOOTNOTES: + +[Footnote 42: James Chalmers: see Chapter XIII.] + +[Footnote 43: See Chapter II.] + + + + +Book Three: THE PATHFINDERS OF AFRICA + + + + +CHAPTER XV + +THE MAN WHO WOULD GO ON + +_David Livingstone_ + +(Dates born 1813, died 1873) + + +There was a deathly stillness in the hot African air as two bronzed +Scots strode along the narrow forest path. + +The one, a young, keen-eyed doctor,[44] glanced quickly through the +trees and occasionally turned aside to pick some strange orchid and to +slip it into his collecting case. The other strode steadily along +with that curious, "resolute forward tread" of his.[45] He was David +Livingstone. Behind them came a string of African bearers carrying in +bundles on their heads the tents and food of the explorers. + +Suddenly, with a crunch, Livingstone's heel went through a white +object half hidden in the long grass--a thing like an ostrich's egg. +He stooped--and his strong, bronzed face was twisted with mingled +sorrow and anger, as, looking into the face of his younger friend, he +gritted out between his clenched teeth, "The slave-raiders again!" + +It was the whitening skull of an African boy. + +For weeks those two Britons had driven their little steamer (the +_Asthmatic_ they called her, because of her wheezing engines) up the +Zambesi river and were now exploring its tributary the Shire. + +Each morning, before they could start the ship's engines, they had +been obliged to take poles and push from between the paddles of the +wheels the dead bodies of Africans--men, women, and children--slain +bodies which had floated down from the villages that the Arab +slave-raiders had burned and sacked. Livingstone was out on the long, +bloody trail of the slaver, the trail that stretched on and on into +the heart of Africa where no white man had ever been. + +This negro boy's skull, whitening on the path, was only one more +link in the long, sickening shackle-chain of slavery that girdled +down-trodden Africa. + +The two men strode on. The forest path opened out to a broad clearing. +They were in an African village. But no voice was heard and no step +broke the horrible silence. It was a village of death. The sun blazed +on the charred heaps which now marked the sites of happy African +homes; the gardens were desolate and utterly destroyed. The village +was wiped out. Those who had submitted were far away, trudging through +the forest, under the lash of the slaver; those who had been too old +to walk or too brave to be taken without fight were slain. + +The heart of Livingstone burned with one great resolve--he would track +this foul thing into the very heart of Africa and then blazon its +horrors to the whole world. + +The two men trudged back to the river bank again. Now, with their +brown companions, they took the shallow boat that they had brought +on the deck of the _Asthmatic_, and headed still farther up the Shire +river from the Zambesi toward the unknown Highlands of Central Africa. + + +_Facing Spears and Arrows_ + +Only the sing-song chant of the Africans as they swung their paddles, +and the frightened shriek of a glittering parrot, broke the stillness +as the boat pushed northward against the river current. + +The paddles flashed again, and as the boat came round a curve in the +river they were faced by a sight that made every man sit, paddle in +hand, motionless with horror. The bank facing them in the next curve +of the river was black with men. The ranks of savages bristled with +spears and arrows. A chief yelled to them to turn back. Then a cloud +of arrows flew over the boat. + +"Go on," said Livingstone quietly to the Africans. Their paddles took +the water and the boat leapt toward the savage semi-circle on the +bank. The water was shallower now. Before any one realised what was +happening Livingstone had swung over the edge of the boat and, up to +his waist in water, was wading ashore with his arms above his head. + +"It is peace!" he called out, and waded on toward the barbs of a +hundred arrows and spears. The men in the boat sat breathless, waiting +to see their leader fall with a score of spears through his body. +But the savages on the bank were transfixed with amazement at +Livingstone's sheer audacity. Awed by something god-like in this +unflinching and unarmed courage, no finger let fly a single arrow. + +"You think," he called to the chief, "that I am a slave-raider." For +Livingstone knew that he had never in all his wanderings been attacked +by Africans save where they had first been infuriated by the cruel +raiders. + +The chief scowled. + +"See," cried Livingstone, baring his arm to show his white skin as +he again and again had done when threatened by Africans, "is this the +colour of the men who come to make slaves and to kill?" + +The savages gazed with astonishment. They had never before seen so +white a skin. + +"No," Livingstone went on, "this is the skin of the tribe that has +heart toward the African." + +Almost unconsciously the man had dropped the spear points and arrow +heads as he was speaking. The chief listened while Livingstone, who +was now on the bank, told the savages how he had come across the great +waters from a far-off land with a message of peace and goodwill. + +Unarmed and with a dauntless heroism the "white man who would go on" +had won a great victory over that tribe. He now passed on in his boat +up the river and over rapids toward the wonderful shining Highlands in +the heart of Africa. + + +_"Deliverance to the Captives"_ + +Dr. Kirk was recalled to England by the British Government; but +Livingstone trudged on in increasing loneliness over mountains and +across rivers and lakes, plunging through marshes, racked a score of +times with fever, robbed of his medicines, threatened again and again +by the guns of the slave-raiding Arabs and the spears and clubs of +savage head-hunters, bearing on his bent shoulders the Cross of the +negroes' agony--slavery, till at last, alone and on his knees in +the dead of night, our Greatheart crossed his last River, into the +presence of his Father in heaven. + +Yet still, though his body was dead, his spirit would go on. For the +life Livingstone lived, the death he died, and the record he wrote +of the slave-raiders' horrible cruelties thrilled all Britain to heal +that "open sore of the world." Queen Victoria made Dr. Kirk her consul +at Zanzibar, and told him to make the Sultan of Zanzibar order all +slave-trading through that great market to cease. And to-day, because +of David Livingstone, through all the thousands of miles of Africa +over which he trod, no man dare lay the shackles of slavery on +another. To-day, where Livingstone saw the slave-market in Zanzibar, +a grand church stands, built by negro hands, and in that cathedral you +may hear the negro clergy reading such words as-- + + "The voice of one crying in the wilderness, + Prepare ye the way of the Lord, + Make His paths straight," + +and African boys singing in their own tongue words that sum up the +whole life of David Livingstone. + + "He hath sent me to heal the broken-hearted, + To preach deliverance to the captives." + +FOOTNOTES: + +[Footnote 44: Dr Kirk, now Sir John Kirk, G.C.M.G., who, leaning upon +his African ebony stick and gazing with his now dimmed eyes into +the glow of the fire, told me many stories of his adventures with +Livingstone on his Zambesi journeyings, including this one. See next +chapter.] + +[Footnote 45: A friend of mine asked a very old African in +Matabeleland whether--as a boy--he remembered Dr. Livingstone. "Oh, +yes," replied the aged Matabele, "he came into our village out of +the bush walking thus," and the old man got up and stumped along, +imitating the determined tread of Livingstone, which, after sixty +years, was the one thing he remembered.] + + + + +CHAPTER XVI + +THE BLACK PRINCE OF AFRICA + +_Khama_ + +(Dates 1850--the present day) + + +One day men came running into a village in South Africa to say that +a strange man, whose body was covered with clothes and whose face +was not black, was walking toward their homes. He was coming from the +South. + +Never before had such a man been seen in their tribe. So there was +great excitement and a mighty chattering went through the round wattle +of mud huts with their circular thatched roofs. + +The African Chief, Sekhome--who was the head of this Bamangwato tribe +and who was also a noted witch-doctor--started out along the southward +trail to meet the white man. By his side ran his eldest son. He was a +lithe, blithe boy; his chocolate coloured skin shone and the muscles +rippled as he trotted along. He was so swift that his name was the +name of the antelope that gallops across the veldt. Cama is what the +Bamangwato call the antelope. Khama is how we spell the boy's name. + +He gazed in wonder as he saw a sturdy man wearing clothes such as he +had not seen before--what we call coat and hat, trousers and boots. +He looked into the bronzed face of the white man and saw that his eyes +and mouth were kind. Together they walked back into the village. Chief +Sekhome found that the white man's name was David Livingstone; and +that he was a kind doctor who could make boys and men better when they +were ill, with medicines out of a black japanned box. + +When evening came the boy Khama saw the strange white man open another +box and take out a curious thing which seemed to open yet was full of +hundreds and hundreds of leaves. Khama had never seen such a thing +in his life and he could not understand why Livingstone opened it +and kept looking at it for a long time, for he had never seen a book +before and did not even know what letters were or what reading was. + +It seemed wonderful to him when he heard that that book could speak +to Livingstone without making any sound and that it told him about +the One Infinite, Holy, Loving God, Who is Father of all men, black or +brown or white, and Whose Son, Jesus Christ, came to teach us all to +love God and to love one another. For the book was the Bible which +Livingstone all through his heroic exploring of Africa read each day. + +So Livingstone passed on from the village; but this boy Khama never +forgot him, and in time--as we shall see--other white men came and +taught Khama himself to read that same book and worship that same God. + + +_The Fight with the Lion_ + +Meanwhile strange adventures came to the growing young Khama. This is +the story of some of them: + +The leaping flames of a hunting camp-fire threw upon the dark +background of thorn trees weird shadows of the men who squatted in a +circle on the ground, talking. + +The men were all Africans, the picked hunters from the tribe of the +Bamangwato. They were out on the spoor of a great lion that had made +himself the terror of the tribe. Night after night the lion had leapt +among their oxen and had slain the choicest in the chief's herds. +Again and again the hunters had gone out on the trail of the ferocious +beast; but always they returned empty-handed, though boasting loudly +of what they would do when they should face the lion. + +"To-morrow, yes, to-morrow," cried a young Bamangwato hunter rolling +his eyes, "I will slay _tau e bogale_--the fierce lion." + +The voices of the men rose on the night air as the whole group +declared that the beast should ravage their herds no more--the whole +group, except one. This young man's tense face and the keen eyes that +glowed in the firelight showed his contempt for those who swaggered so +much and did so little. He was Khama, the son of Sekhome, the chief. +The wild flames gleamed on him as he stood there, full six feet of +tireless manhood leaning on his gun, like a superb statue carved in +ebony. Those swift, spare limbs of his, that could keep pace with a +galloping horse, gave him the right to his name, Khama--the Antelope. + +The voices dropped, and the men, rolling themselves in the skins of +wild beasts, lay down and slept--all except one, whose eyes watched in +the darkness as sleeplessly as the stars. When they were asleep Khama +took up his gun and went out into the starry night. + +The night passed. As the first flush of dawn paled the stars, and +the men around the cold ashes of the fire sat up, they gazed in +awed amazement. For they saw, striding toward them, their tall young +chieftain; and over his shoulders hung the tawny skin and mane of a +full-grown king lion. Alone in the night he had slain the terror of +the tribe! + +The men who had boasted of what they meant to do and had never +performed, never heard Khama--either at that time or later--make any +mention of this great feat. + +It was no wonder that the great Bamangwato tribe looked at the tall, +silent, resolute young chieftain and, comparing him with his crafty +father Sekhome and his treacherous, cowardly younger brother Khamane, +said, "Khama is our _boikanyo_--our confidence." + + +_The Fight with the Witch-doctors_ + +The years went by; and that fierce old villain Sekhome plotted and +laid ambush against the life of his valiant son, Khama. Men who +followed David Livingstone into Africa had come as missionaries to +his tribe and had taught him the story of Jesus and given him the +knowledge of reading and writing. So Khama had become a Christian, +though Sekhome his father was still a heathen witch-doctor. Khama +would have nothing to do with the horrible ceremonies by which the +boys of the tribe were initiated into manhood; nor would he look on +the heathen rain-making incantations, though his father smoked with +anger against him. Under a thousand insults and threats of death Khama +stood silent, never insulting nor answering again, and always treating +with respect his unnatural father. + +"You, as the son of a great chief, must marry other wives," said +old Sekhome, whose wives could not be numbered. Young Khama firmly +refused, for the Word of God which ruled his life told him that he +must have but one wife. Sekhome foamed with futile rage. + +"You must call in the rain-doctors to make rain," said Sekhome, as +the parched earth cracked under the flaming sun. Khama knew that their +wild incantations had no power to make rain, but that God alone ruled +the heavens. So he refused. + +Sekhome now made his last and most fearful attack. He was a +witch-doctor and master of the witch-doctors whose ghoulish +incantations made the Bamangwato tremble in terror of unseen devils. + +One night the persecuted Khama woke at the sound of strange clashing +and chanting. Looking out he saw the fitful flame of a fire. Going out +from his hut, he saw the _lolwapa_ or court in front of it lit up +with weird flames round which the black wizards danced with horns and +lions' teeth clashing about their necks, and with manes of beasts' +hair waving above their horrible faces. As they danced they cast +charms into the fire and chanted loathsome spells and terrible curses +on Khama. As a boy he had been taught that these witch-doctors had the +power to slay or to smite with foul diseases. He would have been more +than human if he had not felt a shiver of nameless dread at this lurid +and horrible dance of death. + +Yet he never hesitated. He strode forward swiftly, anger and contempt +on his face, scattering the witch-doctors from his path and leaping +full upon their fire of charms, stamped it out and scattered its +embers broadcast. The wizards fled into the darkness of the night. + + +_The Fight with the Kaffir Beer_ + +At last Khama's treacherous old father, Sekhome, died. Khama was +acclaimed the supreme chief of all the Bamangwato.[46] He galloped out +at the head of his horsemen to pursue Lobengula, the ferocious chief +of the Matabele who had struck fear into the Bamangwato for many +years. Even Lobengula, who to his dying day carried in his neck a +bullet from Khama's gun, said of him, "The Bamangwato are dogs, but +Khama is a man." + +Khama had now freed his people from the terror of the lion, the +tyranny of witch-doctors, and the dread of the Matabele. Yet the +deadliest enemy of Khama and the most loathsome tyrant of the +Bamangwato was still in power,--the strong drink which degrades the +African to unspeakable depths. + +Even as Khama charged at the head of his men into the breaking ranks +of the Matabele, his younger brother, Khamane, whom he had put in +charge of his city in his absence, said to the people: "You may brew +beer again now." Many of the people did not obey, but others took the +corn of the tribe and brewed beer from it. + +At night the cries of beaten women rose, and the weird chants of +incantations and of foul unclean dances were heard. Khamane called the +older men together around his fire. Pots of beer passed from hand to +hand. As the men grew fuddled they became bolder and more boastful. +Khamane then spoke to them and said, "Why should Khama rule you? +Remember he forbids you to make and to drink beer. He has done away +with the dances of the young men. He will not let you make charms or +throw enchanted dice or make incantations for rain. He is a Christian. +If I ruled you, you should do all these things." + +When Khama rode back again into his town he saw men and women lying +drunk under the eaves of their huts and others reeling along the road. +At night the sounds of chants and drinking dances rose on the air. + +His anger was terrible. For once he lost his temper. He seized a +burning torch and running to the hut of Khamane set fire to the roof +and burned the house down over his drunken brother's head. He ordered +all the beer that had been brewed to be seized, and poured it out +upon the veldt. He knew that he was fighting a fiercer enemy than +the Matabele, a foe that would throttle his tribe and destroy all his +people if he did not conquer it. The old men of the tribe muttered +against him and plotted his death. He met them face to face. His eyes +flashed. + +"When I was still a lad," he said, "I used to think how I would +govern my town and what kind of a kingdom it should be. One thing I +determined, I would not rule over a drunken town or people. I WILL NOT +HAVE DRINK IN THIS TOWN. If you must have it you must go." + + +_The Fight with the White Man's "Fire-water"_ + +Khama had conquered for the moment. But white men, Englishmen, came +to the town. They set up stores. And in the stores they began to sell +brandy from large casks. + +The drinking of spirits has more terrible effects on the African than +even on white men. Once he starts drinking, the African cannot +stop and is turned into a sot. The ships of the white man have been +responsible to a terrible extent for sending out the "fire-water" to +Africa. + +Khama called the white traders in the tribe together. + +"It is my desire," he said, "that no strong drink shall be sold in my +town." + +"We will not bring the great casks of brandy," they replied, "but +we hope you will allow us to have cases of bottles as they are for +medicine." + +"I consent," said Khama, "but there must be no drunkenness." + +"Certainly," the white men replied, "there shall be no drunkenness." + +In a few days one of the white traders had locked himself into his +house in drunken delirium, naked and raving. Morning after morning +Khama rose before daybreak to try and get to the man when he was +sober, but all the time he was drunk. Then one morning this man +gathered other white men together in a house and they sat drinking and +then started fighting one another. + +A boy ran to Khama to tell him. The chief went to the house and strode +in. The room was a wreck. The men lay senseless with their white +shirts stained with blood. + +Khama with set, stern face turned and walked to the house where he +often went for counsel, the home of his friend, Mr. Hepburn, the +missionary. Mr. Hepburn lay ill with fever. Khama told him what the +white men had done. Hepburn burned with shame and anger that his own +fellow-countrymen should so disgrace themselves. Ill as he was he rose +and went out with the chief and saw with his own eyes that it was as +Khama said. + +"I will clear them all out of my town," cried the chief. + +It was Saturday night. + + +_Khama's Decisive Hour_ + +On the Monday morning Khama sent word to all the white men to come +to him. It was a cold, dreary day. The chief sat waiting in the +_Kgotla_[47] while the white men came together before him. Hepburn, +the missionary, sat by his side. Those who knew Khama saw as soon as +they looked into his grim face that no will on earth could turn him +from his decisions that day. + +"You white men,"[48] he said to them sternly, "have insulted and +despised me in my own town because I am a black man. If you despise us +black men, what do you want here in the country that God has given to +us? Go back to your own country." + +His voice became hard with a tragic sternness. + +"I am trying," he went on, "to lead my people to act according to +the word of God which we have received from you white people, and yet +_you_ show them an example of wickedness such as we never knew. You," +and his voice rose in burning scorn, "you, the people of the word +of God! You know that some of my own brothers"--he was referring to +Khamane especially--"have learned to like the drink, and you know that +I do not want them to see it even, that they may forget the habit. Yet +you not only bring it in and offer it to them, but you try to tempt +_me_ with it. + +"I make an end of it to-day. Go! Take your cattle and leave my town +and _never come back again_!" + +No man moved or spoke. They were utterly shamed and bewildered. Then +one white man, who had lived in the town since he was a lad, pleaded +with Khama for pity as an old friend. + +"You," said the chief with biting irony, "my friend? You--the +ringleader of those who despise my laws. You are my worst enemy. You +pray for pity? No! for you I have no pity. It is my duty to have pity +on my people over whom God placed me, and I am going to show them pity +to-day; and that is my duty to them and to God.... Go!" + +And they all went. + +Then the chief ordered in his young warriors and huntsmen. + +"No one of you," he said, "is to drink beer." Then he called a great +meeting of the whole town. In serried masses thousand upon thousand +the Bamangwato faced their great chief. He lifted up his voice: + +"I, Khama, your chief, order that you shall not make beer. You take +the corn that God has given to us in answer to our prayers and you +destroy it. Nay, you not only destroy it, but you make stuff with it +that causes mischief among you." + +There was some murmuring. + +His eyes flashed like steel. + +"You can kill me," he said, "but you cannot conquer me." + + * * * * * + + +_The Black Prince of Eighty_ + +If you rode as a guest toward Khama's town over seventy years after +those far-off days when Livingstone first went there, as you came in +sight of the great stone church that the chief has built, you would +see tearing across the African plain a whirlwind of dust. It would +race toward you, with the soft thunder of hoofs in the loose soil. +When the horses were almost upon you--with a hand of steel--chief +Khama would rein in his charger and his bodyguard would pull up behind +him. + +Over eighty years old, grey and wrinkled, he would spring from his +horse, without help, to greet you--still Khama, the Antelope. Old +as he is, he is as alert as ever. He heard that a great all Africa +aeroplane route was planned after the Great War. At once he offered +to make a great aerodrome, and the day at last came when +Khama--eighty-five years old--who had seen Livingstone, the first +white man to visit his tribe--stood watching the first aeroplane come +bringing a young officer from the clouds. + +He stands there, the splendid chief of the Bamangwato--"steel-true, +blade-straight." He is the Black Prince of Africa--who has indeed won +his spurs against the enemies of his people. + +And if you were to ask him the secret of the power by which he has +done these things, Khama the silent, who is not used to boasting, +would no doubt lead you at dawn to the _Kgotla_ before his huts. There +at every sunrise he gathers his people together for their morning +prayers at the feet of the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the +Captain and King of our Great Crusade for the saving of Africa. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[Footnote 46: In 1875.] + +[Footnote 47: The chiefs open-air enclosure for official meetings.] + +[Footnote 48: These are Khama's own words taken down at the time by +Hepburn.] + + + + +CHAPTER XVII + +THE KNIGHT OF THE SLAVE GIRLS + +_George Grenfell_ + +(Dates, b. 1849, d. 1906) + + +_The Building of the Steamship_ + +When David Livingstone lay dying in his hastily-built hut, in the +heart of Africa, with his black companions Susi and Chumah attending +him, almost his last words were, "How far away is the Luapula?" + +He knew that the river to which the Africans gave that name was only +a short distance away and that it flowed northward. He thought that it +might be the upper reaches of the Nile, which had been sought by men +through thousands of years, but which none had ever explored. + +Livingstone died in that hut (1873) and never knew what Stanley, +following in his footsteps, discovered later (1876-7), viz., that the +Luapula was really the upper stretch of the Congo, the second largest +river in the world (3000 miles long), flowing into the Atlantic. The +basin of the Congo would cover the whole of Europe from the Black Sea +to the English Channel. + +In the year when Livingstone died, and before Stanley started to +explore the Congo, a young man, who had been thrilled by reading the +travels of Livingstone, sailed to the West Coast of Africa to the +Kameruns. + +His name was George Grenfell, a Cornish boy (born at Sancreed, four +miles from Penzance, in England), who was brought up in Birmingham. +He was apprenticed at fifteen to a firm of hardware and machinery +dealers. Here he picked up, as a lad, some knowledge of machinery that +helped him later on the Congo. He had been thrilled to meet at Bristol +College, where he was trained for his missionary work, a thin, worn, +heroic man of tried steel, Alfred Saker, the great Kamerun missionary, +and Grenfell leapt for joy to go out to the dangerous West Coast of +Africa, where he worked hard, teaching the Africans to make tables and +bricks and to print and read, healing them and preaching to them. + +When Stanley came down the Congo to the sea and electrified the world +by the story of the great river, Grenfell and the Baptist Missionary +Society which he served conceived the daring and splendid plan of +starting a chain of mission stations right from the mouth of the +Congo eastward across Africa. In 1878 Grenfell was on his way up the +river--travelling along narrow paths flanked by grass often fifteen +feet high, and crossing swamps and rivers, till after thirteen +attempts and in eighteen months he reached Stanley Pool, February +1881. A thousand miles of river lay between Stanley Pool and Stanley +Falls, and even above Stanley Falls lay thirteen hundred miles of +navigable river. Canoes were perilous. Hippopotami upset them, and men +were dragged down and eaten by crocodiles. They must have a steamer +right up there beyond the Falls in the very heart of Africa. + +Grenfell went home to England, and the steamer _Peace_ was built on +the Thames, Grenfell watching everything being made from the crank +to the funnel. She was built, launched, and tried on the Thames; then +taken to pieces and packed in 800 packages, weighing 65 lbs. each, +and taken to the mouth of the Congo. On the heads and shoulders of +a thousand men the whole ship and the food of the party were carried +past the rapids, over a thousand miles along narrow paths, in peril of +snakes and leopards and enemy savages, over streams crossed by bridges +of vine-creepers, through swamps, across ravines. + +Grenfell's engineer, who was to have put the ship together, died. At +last they reached Stanley Pool. Grenfell with eight negroes started +to try to build the ship. It was a tremendous task. Grenfell said +the _Peace_ was "prayed together." It was prayer and hard work and +gumption. At last the ship was launched, steam was up, the _Peace_ +began to move. "She lives, master, she lives!" shouted the excited +Africans. + +A thousand thrilling adventures came to him as he steamed up and +down the river, teaching and preaching, often in the face of +poisoned arrows and spears. We are now going to hear the story of one +adventure. + +_The Steamer's Journey_ + +The crocodiles drowsily dosing in the slime of the Congo river bank +stirred uneasily as a strange sound broke the silence of the blazing +African morning. They lifted their heavy jaws and swung their heads +down stream. Their beady eyes caught sight of a Thing mightier than a +thousand crocodiles. It was pushing its way slowly up stream. + +The sound was the throb of the screw of the steamer from whose funnel +a light ribbon of smoke floated across the river. An awning shaded the +whole deck from bow to stern. On the top of the awning, under a little +square canopy, stood a tall young negro; the muscles in his sturdy +arms and his broad shoulders rippled under his dark skin as the wheel +swung round in his swift, strong hands. + +The steamer drove up stream while the crocodiles, startled by the wash +of the boat, slid sullenly down the bank and dived. + +A short, bearded man, dressed in white duck, stood on deck at the +bows, where the steamer's name, _Peace_, was painted. He was George +Grenfell. His keen eyes gleamed through the spectacles that rested on +his strong, arched nose. By his side stood his wife, looking out up +the river. They were searching for the landing-place and the hut-roofs +of some friendly river-side town. + +At last as the bows swung round the next bend in the river they saw +a village. The Africans rushed to the bank and hurriedly pushed out +their tree-trunk canoes. Grenfell shouted an order. A bell rang. The +screw stopped and the steamer lay-to while he climbed down into the +ship's canoe and was paddled ashore. The wondering people pushed and +jostled around them to see this strange man with his white face. + + +_The Slave Girls_ + +As they walked up among the huts, speaking with the men of the town, +Grenfell came to an open space. As his quick eyes looked about he saw +two little girls standing bound with cords. They were tethered +like goats to a stake. Their little faces and round eyes looked all +forlorn. Even the wonder of the strange bearded white man hardly kept +back the tears that filled their eyes. + +"What are these?" he asked, turning to the chief. + +The African pointed up the river. Grenfell's heart burned in him, +as the chief told how he and his men had swept up the river in their +canoes armed with their spears and bows and arrows and had raided +another tribe. + +"And these," said the chief, pointing to the girls, who began +to wonder what was going to happen, "these are two girls that we +captured. They are some of our booty. They are slaves. They are tied +there till someone will come and buy them." + +Grenfell could not resist the silent call of their woeful faces. +Quickly he gave beads and cloth to the chief, and took the little +girls back with him down to the river bank. As they jumped into the +canoe to go aboard the S.S. _Peace_, the two girls wondered what this +strange new master would do with them. Would he be cruel? Yet his eyes +looked kind through those funny, round, shining things balanced on his +nose. + +The girls at once forgot all their sorrows when they jumped on board +this wonderful river monster. They felt it shiver and throb and begin +to move. The bank went farther and farther away. The _Peace_ had again +started up stream. + +The girls stood in wonder and gazed with open eyes as the banks slid +past. They saw the birds all green and red flashing along the surface +of the water, and the huge hippopotami sullenly plunging into the +river like the floating islands of earth that sail down the Congo. +Their quick eyes noted the quaint iguana, like giant lizards, sunning +themselves on the branches of the trees over the stream and then +dropping like stones into the stream as the steamer passed. + + +_The Slave Girl's Brother_ + +Then, suddenly, as they came round a bend in the river, all was +changed. There ahead Grenfell saw a river town. The canoes were being +manned rapidly by warriors. The bank bristled with spears in the hands +of ferocious savages, whose faces were made horrible by gashes and +loathsome tattooing. In each canoe men stood with bows in their hands +and arrows drawn to the head. The throb of the engines ceased. The +ship slowed up. But the canoes came on. + +The men of this Congo town only knew one thing. Enemies had, only a +few weeks earlier, come from down-river, had raided their town, +burned their huts, killed many of their braves, and carried away their +children. Here were men who had also come from down the river. They +must, therefore, be enemies. + +Their chief shouted an order. In an instant a score of spears hurtled +at the ship and rattled on the steel screens around the deck. The yell +of the battle-cry of the tribe echoed and re-echoed down the river. + +Grenfell was standing by the little girls. Suddenly one of them with +dancing eyes shouted and waved her arms. + +"What is it?" cried Grenfell to her. + +"See--see!" she cried, pointing to a warrior in a canoe who was just +poising a spear, "that is my brother! That is my brother! This is my +town!" + +"Call to him," said Grenfell. + +Her thin childish voice rang out. But no one heard it among the +warriors. Again she cried out to her brother. The only answer was a +hail of spears and arrows. + +Grenfell turned rapidly and shouted an order to the engineer. +Instantly a shriek, more wild and piercing than the combined yells +of the whole tribe, rent the air. Again the shriek went up. The +warriors stood transfixed with spear and arrow in hand like statues +in ebony. There was a moment's intense and awful silence. They had +never before heard the whistle of a steamer! + +"Shout again--quickly," whispered Grenfell to the little African +girl. + +In a second the child's shrill voice rang out in the silence across +the water, crying first her brother's name, and then her own. + +The astonished warrior dropped his spear, caught up his paddle +and--in a few swift strokes--drove his canoe towards the steamer. His +astonishment at seeing his sister aboard overcame all his dread of +this shrieking, floating island that moved without sails or paddles. + +Quickly she told her story of how the strange white man in the great +canoe that smoked had found her in the village of their enemies, had +saved her from slavery, and--now, had brought her safely home again. +The story passed from lip to lip. Every spear and bow and arrow was +dropped. + +The girls were quickly put ashore, and as Grenfell walked up the +village street every warrior who had but a few moments before been +seeking his blood was now gazing at this strange friend who had +brought back to the tribe the daughters whom they thought they had +lost for ever. + + Grenfell went on with his work in face of fever, inter-tribal + fighting, slave-raiders, the horrors of wife and slave-slaughter + at funerals, witch-killing--and in some ways worse still, the + horrible cruelties of the Belgian rubber-traders--for over a + quarter of a century. + + In June 1906, accompanied by his negro companions, he lay at + Yalemba, sick with fever. Two of the Africans wrote a letter for + help to other missionaries: + + "We are very sorrow," they wrote, "because out Master is very + sick. So now we beging you one of you let him come to help Mr + Grenfell please. We think now is near to die, but we don't know + how to do with him. Yours, + + DISASI MAKULO, + MASCOO LUVUSU." + + To-day all up the fifteen hundred miles of Congo waterway the + power of the work done by Grenfell and the men who came with him + and after him has changed all the life. Gone are the slave-raiders, + the inter-tribal wars, the cruelties of the white men, along that + line. There stand instead negroes who cap make bricks, build + houses, turn a lathe; engineers, printers, bookbinders, + blacksmiths, carpenters, worshipping in churches built with their + own hands. But beyond, and among the myriad tributaries and the + vast forests millions of men have never yet even heard of the love + of God in Jesus Christ, and still work their hideous cruelties. + + So Grenfell, like Livingstone, opened a door. It stands open. + + + + +CHAPTER XVIII + +"A MAN WHO CAN TURN HIS HAND TO ANYTHING" + +_Alexander Mackay_ + +(Dates 1863-1876) + + +The inquisitive village folk stared over their garden gates at Mr. +Mackay, the minister of the Free Kirk of Rhynie, a small Aberdeenshire +village, as he stood with his thirteen-year-old boy gazing into the +road at their feet. The father was apparently scratching at the stones +and dust with his stick. The villagers shook their heads. + +"Fat's the minister glowerin' at, wi' his loon Alic, among the stoor +o' the turnpike?"[49] asked the villagers of one another. + +The minister certainly was powerful in the pulpit, but his ways were +more than they could understand. He was for ever hammering at the +rocks on the moor and lugging ugly lumps of useless stone homeward, +containing "fossils" as he called them. + +Now Mr. Mackay was standing looking as though he were trying to find +something that he had lost in the road. If they had been near enough +to Alec and his father they would have heard words like these: + +"You see, Alec, this is the Zambesi River running down from the heart +of Africa into the Indian Ocean, and here running into the Zambesi +from the north is a tributary, the Shire. Livingstone going up that +river found wild savages who ..." + +So the father was tracing in the dust of the road with the point +of his stick the course of the Zambesi which Livingstone had just +explored for the first time. + +On these walks with his father Alec, with his blue eyes wide open, +used to listen to stories like the Yarn we have read of the marvellous +adventures of Livingstone.[50] Sometimes Mr. Mackay would stop and +draw triangles and circles with his stick. Then Alec would be learning +a problem in Euclid on this strange "blackboard" of the road. He +learned the Euclid--but he preferred the Zambesi and Livingstone! + +One day Alec was off by himself trudging down the road with a fixed +purpose in his mind, a purpose that seemed to have nothing in the +world to do with either Africa or Euclid. He marched away from his +little village of Rhynie, where the burn runs around the foot of +the great granite mountain across the strath. He trudged on for four +miles. Then he heard a shrill whistle. Would he be late after all? +He ran swiftly toward the little railway station. A ribbon of smoke +showed over the cutting, away to the right. Alec entered the station +and ran to one end of the platform as the train slowed down and the +engine stopped just opposite where he stood. + +He gazed at the driver and his mate on the footplate. He followed +every movement as the driver came round the engine with his long-nosed +oil-can, and opened and shut small brass lids and felt the bearings +with his hand to see whether they were hot. The guard waved his green +flag. The whistle of the engine shrieked, and the train steamed out of +the station along the burnside toward Huntly. Alec gazed down the line +till the train was out of sight and then, turning, left the station +and trudged homeward. When he reached Rhynie he had walked eight miles +to look at a railway engine for two and a half minutes--and he was +happy! + +As he went along the village street he heard a familiar sound. + +"Clang-a-clang clang!--ssssssss!" It was irresistible. He stopped, +and stepped into the magic cavern of darkness, gleaming with the +forge-fire, where George Lobban, the smith, having hammered a glowing +horseshoe into shape, gripped it with his pincers and flung it hissing +into the water. + +Having cracked a joke with the laughing smith, Alec dragged himself +away from the smithy, past the green, and looked in at the stable to +curry-comb the pony and enjoy feeling the little beast's muzzle nosing +in his hand for oats. + +He let himself into the manse and ran up to his work-room, where +he began to print off some pages that he had set up on his little +printing press. + +At supper his mother looked sadly at her boy with his dancing eyes as +he told her about the wonders of the railway engine. In her heart she +wanted him to be a minister. And she did not see any sign that this +boy would ever become one: this lad of hers who was always running off +from his books to peer into the furnaces of the gas works, or to tease +the village carpenter into letting him plane a board, or to sit, with +chin in hands and elbows on knees, watching the saddler cutting +and padding and stitching his leather, or to creep into the +carding-mill--like the Budge and Toddy whose lives he had read--"to +see weels go wound." + +It was a bitter cold night in the Christmas vacation fourteen years +later.[51] Alec Mackay, now a young engineering student, was lost to +all sense of time as he read of the hairbreadth escapes and adventures +told by the African explorer, Stanley, in his book, _How I found +Livingstone_. + +He read these words of Stanley's: + + "For four months and four days I lived with Livingstone in the + same house, or in the same boat, or in the same tent, and I never + found a fault in him.... Each day's life with him added to my + admiration for him. His gentleness never forsakes him: his + hopefulness never deserts him. His is the Spartan heroism, the + inflexibility of the Roman, the enduring resolution of the + Anglo-Saxon. The man has conquered me." + +Alexander Mackay put down Stanley's book and gazed into the fire. +Since the days when he had trudged as a boy down to the station to see +the railway engine he had been a schoolboy in the Grammar School at +Aberdeen, and a student in Edinburgh, and while there had worked in +the great shipbuilding yards at Leith amid the clang and roar of the +rivetters and the engine shop. He was now studying in Berlin, drawing +the designs of great engines far more wonderful than the railway +engine he had almost worshipped as a boy. + +On the desk at Mackay's side lay his diary in which he wrote his +thoughts. In that diary were the words that he himself had written: + + "This day last year[52] Livingstone died--a Scotsman and a + Christian--loving God and his neighbour, in the heart of Africa. + 'Go thou and do likewise.'" + +Mackay wondered. Could it ever be that he would go into the heart of +Africa like Livingstone? it seemed impossible. What was the good of an +engineer among the lakes and forests of Central Africa? + +On the table by the side of Stanley's _How I found Livingstone_ lay a +newspaper, the Edinburgh _Daily Review_. Mackay glanced at it; then he +snatched it up and read eagerly a letter which appeared there. It was +a new call to Central Africa--the call, through Stanley, from King +M'tesa of Uganda, that home of massacre and torture. These are some of +the words that Stanley wrote: + + "King M'tesa of Uganda has been asking me about the white man's + God.... Oh that some practical missionary would come here. M'tesa + would give him anything that he desired--houses, land, cattle, + ivory. It is the practical Christian who can ... cure their + diseases, build dwellings, teach farming and turn his hand to + anything like a sailor--this is the man who is wanted. Such a one, + if he can be found, would become the saviour of Africa." + +Stanley called for "a practical man who could turn his hand to +anything--_if he can be found_." + +The words burned their way into Mackay's very soul. + +"If he can be found." Why here, here in this very room he sits--the +boy who has worked in the village at the carpenter's bench and the +saddler's table, in the smithy and the mill, when his mother wished +him to be at his books; the lad who has watched the ships building in +the docks of Aberdeen, and has himself with hammer and file and lathe +built and made machines in the engineering works--he is here--the "man +who can turn his hand to anything." And he had, we remember, already +written in his diary: + + "Livingstone died--a Scotsman and a Christian--loving God and his + neighbour, in the heart of Africa. 'Go thou and do likewise.'" + +Mackay did not hesitate. Then and there he took pen and ink and +paper and wrote to London to the Church Missionary Society which was +offering, in the daily paper that lay before him, to send men out to +King M'tesa. The words that Mackay wrote were these: + + "My heart burns for the deliverance of Africa, and if you can + send me to any one of those regions which Livingstone and Stanley + have found to be groaning under the curse of the slave-hunter I + shall be very glad." + +Within four months Mackay, with some other young missionaries who had +volunteered for the same great work, was standing on the deck of the +S.S. _Peshawur_ as she steamed out from Southampton for Zanzibar. + +He was in the footsteps of Livingstone--"a Scotsman and a +Christian"--making for the heart of Africa and "ready to turn his hand +to anything" for the sake of Him who as + + "... the Carpenter of Nazareth + Made common things for God." + +FOOTNOTES: + +[Footnote 49: "What is the minister gazing at, with his son Alec, in +the dust of the road?"] + +[Footnote 50: See Chapter XV.] + +[Footnote 51: December 12, 1875.] + +[Footnote 52: May 1, 1873.] + + + + +CHAPTER XIX + +THE ROADMAKER + +_Alexander Mackay_ + +(Date, 1878) + + +After many months of delay at Zanzibar, Mackay with his companions +and bearers started on his tramp of hundreds of miles along narrow +footpaths, often through swamps, delayed by fierce greedy chiefs who +demanded many cloths before they would let the travellers pass. One +of the little band of missionaries had already died of fever. When +hundreds of miles from the coast, Mackay was stricken with fever +and nearly died. His companions sent him back to the coast again to +recover, and they themselves went on and put together the _Daisy_, the +boat which the bearers had carried in sections on their heads, on the +shore of Victoria Nyanza. So Mackay, racked with fever, was carried +back by his Africans over the weary miles through swamp and forest to +the coast. At last he was well again, and with infinite labour he cut +a great wagon road for 230 miles to Mpapwa. With pick and shovel, axe +and saw, they cleared the road of trees for a hundred days. + +Mackay wrote home as he sat at night tired by the side of his +half-made road, "This will certainly yet be a highway for the King +Himself; and all that pass this way will come to know His Name." + +At length, after triumphing by sheer skill and will over a thousand +difficulties, Mackay reached the southern shore of Victoria Nyanza at +Kagei, to find that his surviving companions had gone on to Uganda in +an Arab sailing-dhow, leaving on the shore the _Daisy_, which had been +too small to carry them. + +On the beach by the side of that great inland sea, Victoria Nyanza, in +the heart of Africa, Mackay found the now broken and leaking _Daisy_. +Her cedar planks were twisted and had warped in the blazing sun till +every seam gaped. A hippopotamus had crunched her bow between his +terrible jaws. Many of her timbers had crumbled before the still +greater foe of the African boat-builder--the white ant. + +Now, under her shadow lay the man "who could turn his hand to +anything," on his back with hammer and chisel in hand. He was +rivetting a plate of copper on the hull of the _Daisy_. Already he had +nailed sheets of zinc and lead on stern and bow, and had driven cotton +wool picked from the bushes by the lake into the seams to caulk some +of the leaks. Around the boat stood crowds of Africans, their dark +faces full of astonishment at the white man mending his big canoe. + +"Why should a man toil so terribly hard?" they wondered. + +The tribesmen of the lake had only canoes hollowed out from a +tree-trunk, or made of some planks sewn together with fibres from the +banana tree. + +At last Mackay had his boat ready to sail up the Victoria Nyanza. +The whole of the length of that great sea, itself larger than his own +native Scotland, still separated Mackay from the land of Uganda for +which he had left Britain over fifteen months earlier. + +All through his disappointments and difficulties Mackay fought on. +With him, as with Livingstone, nothing had power to break his spirit +or quench his burning determination to carry on his God-given plan to +serve Africa. + +Every use of saw and hammer and chisel, every + + "trick of the tool's true trade," + +all the training in the shipbuilding yards and engineering shops at +Edinburgh and in Germany helped Mackay to invent some new, daring and +ingenious way out of every fresh difficulty. + + +_The Wreck of the "Daisy"_ + +Now at last the _Daisy_ was on the water again; and Mackay and his +bearers went aboard[53] and hoisting sail from Kagei ran northward. +Before they had gone far black storm clouds swept across the sky. +Night fell. Lightning blazed unceasingly and flung up into silhouette +the wild outlines of the mountains to the east. The roar of the +thunder echoed above the wail of the wind and the threshing of the +waves. + +All through the dark, Mackay and those of his men who could handle an +oar rowed unceasingly. Again and again he threw out his twenty-fathom +line, but in vain. He made out a dim line of precipitous cliffs, yet +the water seemed fathomless--the only map in existence was a rough +one that Stanley had made. At last the lead touched bottom at fourteen +fathoms. In the dim light of dawn they rowed and sailed toward a shady +beach before the cliffs, and anchored in three and a half fathoms of +water. + +The storm passed; but the waves from the open sea came roaring in and +broke over the _Daisy_. The bowsprit dipped under the anchor chain, +and the whole bulwark on the weatherside was carried away. The next +sea swept into the open and now sinking boat. By frantic efforts they +heaved up the anchor and the next wave swung the _Daisy_ with a crash +onto the beach, where the waves pounded her to a complete wreck, +wrenching the planks from the keel. But Mackay and his men managed to +rescue her cargo before she went to pieces. + +They were wrecked on a shore where Stanley, the great explorer, had +years before had a hairbreadth escape from massacre at the hands +of the wild savages. But Stanley, living up to the practice he had +learned from Livingstone, had turned enemies into friends, and now the +natives made no attack on the shipwrecked Mackay. + +For eight weeks Mackay laboured there, hard on the edge of the lake, +living on the beach in a tent made of spars and sails. With hammer and +chisel and saw he worked unsparingly at his task. He cut the middle +eight feet from the boat, and bringing her stern and stem together +patched the broken ends with wood from the middle part. After two +months' work the now dumpier _Daisy_ took the water again, and carried +Mackay and his men safely up the long shores of Victoria Nyanza to the +goal of all his travelling, the capital of M'tesa, King of Uganda. + +The rolling tattoo of goat-skin drums filled the royal reception-hall +of King M'tesa, as the great tyrant entered with his chiefs. M'tesa, +his dark, cruel heavy face in vivid contrast with his spotless white +robe, sat heavily down on his stool of State, while brazen trumpets +sent to him from England blared as Mackay entered. The chiefs squatted +on low stools and on the rush-strewn mud-floor before the King. At his +side stood his Prime Minister, the Katikiro, a smaller man than the +King, but swifter and more far-sighted. The Katikiro was dressed in a +snowy-white Arab gown covered by a black mantle trimmed with gold. In +his hard, guilty face treacherous cunning and masterful cruelty were +blended. + +M'tesa was gracious to Mackay, and gave him land on which to build +his home. More important to Mackay than even his hut was his workshop, +where he quickly fixed his forge and anvil, vise and lathe, and +grindstone, for he was now in the place where he could practise his +skill. It was for this that he had left home and friends, and pressed +on in spite of fever and shipwreck to serve Africa and lead her to the +worship of Jesus Christ by working and teaching as our Lord did when +on earth. + +One day the wide thatched roof of that workshop shaded from the +flaming rays of the sun a crowded circle of the chiefs of Uganda with +their slaves, who loved to come to "hear the bellows roar." They were +gazing at Mackay, whose strong, bare right arm was swinging his hammer + + "Clang-a-clang-clang." + +Then a ruddy glow lit up the dark faces of the watchers and the +bronzed face of the white man who in the centre of his workshop was +blowing up his forge fire. Gripping in his pincers the iron hoe that +was now red-hot, Mackay hammered it into shape and then plunged it all +hissing into the bath of water that stood by him. + +Hardly had the cloud of steam risen from the bath, when Mackay once +more gripped the hoe, and moving to his grindstone placed his foot on +the pedal and set the edge of the hoe against the whirling stone. +The sparks flew high. A murmur came from the Uganda chiefs who stood +around. + +"It is witchcraft," they said to one another. "It is witchcraft by +which Mazunga-wa-Kazi makes the hard iron tenfold harder in the water. +It is witchcraft by which he sends the wheels round and makes our hoes +sharp. Surely he is the great wizard." + +Mackay caught the sound of the new name that they had given +him--Mazunga-wa-Kazi--the White-Man-at-Work. They called him by this +name because to them it was very strange that any man should work with +his own hands. + +"Women are for work," said the chiefs. "Men go to talk with the King, +and to fight and eat." + +Mackay paused in his work and turned on them. + +"No," he said, "you are wrong. God made man with one stomach and with +two hands in order that he may work twice as much as he eats." And +Mackay held out before them his own hands blackened with the work of +the smithy, rough with the handling of hammer and saw, the file and +lathe. "But you," and he turned on them with a laugh and pointed to +their sleek bodies as they shone in the glow of the forge fire, "you +are all stomach and no hands." + +They grinned sheepishly at one another under this attack, and, as +Mackay let down the fire and put away his tools, they strolled off to +the hill on which the King's beehive-shaped thatched palace was built. + +Mackay climbed up the hill on the side of which his workshop stood. +From the ridge he gazed over the low-lying marsh from which the women +were bearing on their heads the water-pots. He knew that the men +and women of the land were suffering from fearful illnesses. He now +realised that the fevers came from the poisonous waters of the marsh. +He made up his mind how he could help them with his skill. They must +have pure water; yet they knew nothing of wells. + +Mackay at once searched the hill-side with his spade and found a bed +of clay emerging from the side of the hill. He climbed sixteen feet +higher up the hill and, bringing the men who could help him together, +began digging. He knew that he would reach spring water at the level +of the clay, for the rains that had filtered through the earth would +stop there. + +The Baganda[54] thought that he was mad. "Whoever," they asked one +another, "heard of digging in the top of a hill for water?" + +"When the hole is so deep," said Mackay, measuring out sixteen feet, +"water will come, pure and clean, and you will not need to carry it up +the hill from the marsh." + +They dug and dug till the hole was too deep to hurl the earth up over +the edge. Then Mackay made a pulley, which seemed a magic thing to +them, for they could not yet understand the working of wheels; and +with rope and bucket the earth was pulled up. Exactly at the depth of +sixteen feet the water welled in. The Baganda clapped their hands and +danced with delight. + +"Mackay is the great wizard. He is the mighty spirit," they cried. +"The King must come to see this." + +King M'tesa himself wondered at the story of the making of the well +and the finding of the water. He gave orders that he was to be carried +to view this great wonder. His eyes rolled with astonishment as he saw +it and heard of the wonders that were wrought by the work of men. + +Yet M'tesa and his men still wondered why any man should work +hard. Mackay tried to explain this to the King when he sat in his +reception-hall. Work, Mackay told M'tesa, is the noblest thing a +man can do, and he told him how Jesus Christ, the Son of the Great +Father-Spirit who made all things, did not Himself feel that work +was a thing too mean for Him. For our Lord, when He lived on earth at +Nazareth, worked with His own hands at the carpenter's bench, and made +all labour forever noble. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[Footnote 53: August 23, 1878.] + +[Footnote 54: The people of Uganda.] + + + + +CHAPTER XX + +FIGHTING THE SLAVE TRADE + +_Alexander Mackay_ + +(Date, 1878) + + +In the court of King M'tesa, Mackay always saw many boys who used to +drive away the flies from the King's face with fans, carry stools +for the chiefs and visitors to squat upon, run messages and make +themselves generally useful. Most of these boys were the sons of +chiefs. When they were not occupied with some errand, they would +lounge about playing games with one another in the open space just by +the King's hut. + +Often when Mackay came to speak with the King, he had to wait in this +place before he could have audience of M'tesa. He would bring with +him large sheets of paper on which he had printed in his workshop the +alphabet and some sentences. The printing was actually done with the +little hand-press that Mackay had used in his attic when he was a boy +in his old home in Rhynie. He had taken it with him all the way to +Uganda, and now was setting up letters and sentences in a language +which had never been printed before. + +The Baganda boys who had gathered round the White-Man-of-Work with +wondering eyes, as he with his "magic" printed the sheets of paper, +now crowded about him as he unrolled one of these white sheets with +the curious black smudges on them. Mackay made the noise that we call +A and then B, and pointed to these curious-shaped objects which we +call the letters of the alphabet. Then he got them to make the noise +and point to the letter that represented that sound. At last the +keenest of the boys really could repeat the alphabet right through and +begin to read whole words from another sheet--Baganda words--so that +at length they could read whole sentences. + +Two of these pioneer boys became very good scholars. One named Mukasa +became a Christian and was baptised with the name Samweli (Samuel); +another called Kakumba was baptised Yusufu (Joseph). A third boy had +been captured from a tribe in the north, and his skin was of a much +lighter brown than that of the Baganda boys. This light-skinned +captured slave was named Lugalama. + +Each of these boys felt that it was a very proud day when at last he +could actually read a whole sheet of printing from beginning to end +in his own language--from "Our Father" down to "the Kingdom, the power +and the glory, Amen." + +One morning these page-boys leapt to their feet as they heard the +familiar rattle of the drums that heralded the coming of King M'tesa. +They bowed as he entered the hall and sat heavily on his stool, while +his chiefs ranged themselves about him. + +On a stool near the King sat Mackay, the White-Man-of-Work. His +bronzed face was set in grim determination, for he knew that on that +morning he had a difficult battle to fight. + +Another loud battering of drum-heads filled the air. The entrance to +the hut was darkened by a tall, swarthy Arab in long, flowing robes, +followed by negro-bearers, who cast on the ground bales of cloth and +guns. The Arab wore on his head a red fez, round which a coloured +turban scarf was wound. He was a slave-trader from the coast, who +had come from the East to M'tesa in Uganda to buy men and women and +children to carry them away into slavery. + +King M'tesa was himself not only a slave-trader but a slave-raider. +He sent his fierce gangs of warriors out to raid a tribe away in the +hills to the north. They would dash into a village, slay the men, +and drag the boys and girls and women back to M'tesa as slaves. The +bronze-skinned boy, Lugalama, was a young slave who had been captured +on one of these bloodthirsty raids. And M'tesa, who often sent out +his executioners to slay his own people by the hundred to please the +dreaded and horrible god of small-pox, would also sell his people by +the hundred to get guns for his soldiers. + +The Arab slave-trader bowed to the earth before King M'tesa, who +signalled to him to speak. + +"I have come," said the Arab, pointing to the guns on the floor, +"to bring you these things in exchange for some men and women and +children. See, I offer you guns and percussion caps and cloth." And he +spread out lengths of the red cloth, and held out one of the guns with +its gleaming barrel. + +King M'tesa's eyes lighted up with desire as he saw the muskets and +the ammunition. These, he thought, are the things that will make me +powerful against my enemies. + +"I will give you," the Arab slave-trader went on, "one of these +lengths of red cloth in exchange for one man to be sold to me as +a slave; one of these guns for two men; and one hundred of these +percussion caps for a woman as a slave." + +Mackay looked into the cruel face of M'tesa, and he could see how the +ambitious King longed for the guns. Should he risk the favour of the +King by fighting the battle of a few slaves? Yet Mackay remembered as +he sat there, how Livingstone's great fight against the slave-traders +had made him, as a student, vow that he too would go out and fight +slavery in Africa. The memory nerved him for the fight he was now to +make. + +Mackay turned to M'tesa and said words like these:[55] + +"O King M'tesa, you are set as father over all your multitude of +people. They are your children. It is they who make you a great King. + +"Remember, O King, that the Sultan of Zanzibar himself has signed a +decree that no slaves shall be taken in all these lands and sold to +other lands down beyond the coast, whither this Arab would lead your +children. Therefore if you sell slaves you break his law. + +"Will you, then, sell your own people that they may be taken out of +their homeland into a strange country? They will be chained to one +another, beaten with whips, scourged and kicked, and many will be left +at the wayside to die; till the peoples of the coast shall laugh at +Uganda and say, 'That is how King M'tesa lets strangers treat his +children!'" + +We can imagine how the Arab turned and scowled fiercely at Mackay. +His heart raged, and he would have given anything to plunge the dagger +hidden in his robe into Mackay's heart. Who was this white man who +dared to try to stop his trade? But Mackay went on. + +"See," he said, pointing to the boys and the chiefs, "your children +are wonderfully made. Their bones, which are linked together, are +clothed with flesh; and from the heart in their breasts the blood that +gives men life flows to and fro through their bodies, while the breath +goes in and out of their lungs and makes them live. God the Father and +Maker of all men alone can create such wonders. No men who ever lived +could, if they worked all through their lives, make one thing so +marvellous as one of these boys. Will you, then, sell one of these +miracles, one of your children, for a bit of red rag which any man can +make in a day?" + +All eyes turned to King M'tesa to learn what he would say. + +The King with a wave of his hand dismissed the scowling Arab, while he +took counsel with his chiefs, and came to this decision: + +"My people shall no more be made slaves." + +A decree was written out and King M'tesa put his hand to it. The +crestfallen Arab and his men gathered up their guns and cloths, +marched down the hill to buy ivory instead of slaves for their bales +of red cloth, and went out of the dominions of King M'tesa, across the +Great Lake homeward. + +Mackay had won the first battle against slavery. His heart was very +glad. Yet he knew that, although he had scored a triumph in this fight +with the slave-dealer, he had not won in his great campaign. The King +was generally kind to Mackay, for he was proud to have so clever a +white man in his country. But he could not make up his mind to become +a Christian. M'tesa's heart had not really changed. His slave-raiding +of other tribes might still go on. The horrible butcherings of his +people to turn away the dreaded anger of the gods would continue. +Mackay felt he must press on with his work. He was slowly opening a +road through the jungle of cruelty and the marshes of dread of the +gods that made the life of the Baganda people dark and dreadful. + +All Uganda waited breathless one day as though the end of the world +had come. + +"King M'tesa is dead!" the cry went out through all the land. + +The people waited in dread and on tiptoe of eagerness till the new +king was selected by the chiefs from the sons of the dead ruler. + +At last a great cheer went up from the Palace. "M'wanga has eaten +Uganda!" they shouted. + +By this the people meant that M'wanga, a young son of M'tesa--only +eighteen years old--had been made King. He was, however, a boy with no +power--the mere feeble tool of the Katikiro (the Prime Minister) and +of Mujasi, the Captain of the King's own bodyguard of soldiers. Both +of these great men of the kingdom fiercely hated Mackay, for they were +jealous of his power over the old King. So they whispered into the +young M'wanga's ears stories like this: "You know that men say that +Uganda will be eaten up by an enemy from the lands of the rising sun. +Mackay and the other white men are making ready to bring thousands of +white soldiers into your land to 'eat it up' and to kill you." + +So M'wanga began to refuse to speak to Mackay. Then, because the King +was afraid to attack him, he began to lay plots against the boys. + +One morning Mackay started out from his house with five or six boys +and the crew of his boat to march down to the lake. Among the boys +were young Lugalama--the fair-haired slave-boy, now a freed-slave and +a servant to Mackay--and Kakumba, who had (you remember) been baptised +Joseph. The King and the Katikiro had given Mackay permission to go +down to the lake and sail across it to take letters to a place called +Msalala from which the carriers would bear them down to the coast. + +Down the hill the party walked, the crew carrying the baggage and the +oars on their heads. Mackay and his colleague Ashe, who had come out +from England to work with him, walked behind. + +To their surprise there came running down the path behind them and +past them a company of soldiers. + +"Where are you going?" asked Mackay of one of the soldiers. + +"Mujasi, the Captain of the Bodyguard," he replied, "has sent us to +capture some of the King's wives who have run away." + +Another and yet another body of soldiers rushed past them. Mackay +became more and more suspicious that some foul plot was being brewed. +He and his company had walked ten miles, and the lake was but two +miles away, divided from them by a wood. Suddenly there leapt out from +behind the trees of the wood hundreds of men headed by Mujasi himself. + +They levelled their guns and spears at Mackay and his friends and +yelled, "Go back! Go back!" + +"We are the King's friends," replied Mackay, "and we have his leave to +travel. How dare you insult us?" + +And they pushed forward. But the soldiers rushed at them; snatched +their walking-sticks from them and began to jostle them. Mackay and +Ashe sat down by the side of the path. Mujasi came up to them. + +"Where are you walking?" he asked. + +"We are travelling to the port with the permission of King M'wanga and +the Katikiro." + +"You are a liar!" replied Mujasi. + +Mujasi stood back and the soldiers rushed at the missionaries, dragged +them to their feet and held the muzzles of their guns within a few +inches of their chests. Mackay turned with his boys and marched back +to the capital. + +He and Ashe were allowed to go back to their own home on the side of +the hill, but the five boys were marched to the King's headquarters +and imprisoned. The Katikiro, when Mackay went to him, refused to +listen at first. Then he declared that Mackay was always taking boys +out of the country, and returning with armies of white men and hiding +them with the intention of conquering Uganda. + +The Katikiro waved them aside and the angry waiting mob rushed on the +missionaries yelling, "Mine shall be his coat!" "Mine his trousers!" +"No, mine!" shouted another, as the men scuffled with one another. + +Mackay and Ashe at last got back to their home and knelt in prayer. +Later on the same evening, they decided to attempt to win back +the King and the Prime Minister and Mujasi by gifts, so that their +imprisoned boys would be freed from danger. + +Mackay spoke to his other boys, telling them to go and fly for their +lives or they would be killed. + +In the morning Mackay heard that three of the boys who had been +captured on the previous day were not only bound as prisoners, but +that Mujasi was threatening to burn them to death. The boys were named +Seruwanga, Kakumba, and Lugalama. The eldest was fifteen, the youngest +twelve. + +The boys were led out with a mob of howling men and boys around them. +Mujasi shouted to them: "Oh, you know Isa Masiya (Jesus Christ). You +believe you will rise from the dead. I shall burn you, and you will +see if this is so." + +A hideous roar of laughter rose from the mob. The boys were led down +the hill towards the edge of a marsh. Behind them was a plantation of +banana trees. Some men who had carried bundles of firewood on their +heads threw the wood into a heap; others laid hold of each of the boys +and cut off their arms with hideous curved knives so that they should +not struggle in the fire. + +Seruwanga, the bravest, refused to utter a cry as he was cut to +pieces, but Kakumba shouted to Mujasi, who was a Mohammedan, "You +believe in Allah the Merciful. Be merciful!" But Mujasi had no mercy. + +We are told that the men who were watching held their breath with +awed amazement as they heard a boy's voice out of the flame and smoke +singing, + + "Daily, daily sing to Jesus, + Sing, my soul, His praises due." + +As the executioners came towards the youngest and feeblest, Lugalama, +he cried, "Oh, do not cut off my arms. I will not struggle, I will not +fight--only throw me into the fire." + +But they did their ghastly work, and threw the mutilated boy on a +wooden framework above the slow fire where his cries went up, till at +last there was silence. + +One other Christian stood by named Musali. Mujasi, with eyes bloodshot +and inflamed with cruelty, came towards him and cried: + +"Ah, you are here. I will burn you too and your household. You are a +follower of Isa (Jesus)." + +"Yes, I am," replied Musali, "and I am not ashamed of it." + +It was a marvel of courage to say in the face of the executioner's +fire and knife what Peter dared not say when the servant-maid in +Jerusalem laughed at him. Perhaps the heroism of Musali awed even the +cruel-hearted Mujasi. In any case he left Musali alone. + +For a little time M'wanga ceased to persecute the Christians. But the +wily Arabs whispered in his ear that the white men were still trying +to "eat up" his country. M'wanga was filled with mingled anger and +fear. Then his fury burst all bounds when Mujasi said to him: "There +is a great white man coming from the rising sun. Behind him will come +thousands of white soldiers." + +"Send at once and kill him," cried the demented M'wanga. + +A boy named Balikudembe, a Christian, heard the order and he could not +contain himself, but broke out, "Oh, King M'wanga, why are you going +to kill a white man? Your father did not do so." + +But the soldiers went out, travelled east along the paths till they +met the great Bishop Hannington being carried in a litter, stricken +with fever. They took him prisoner, and, after some days, slew him as +he stood defenceless before them. Hannington had been sent out to help +Mackay and his fellow-Christians. + +Then the King fell ill. He believed that the boy Balikudembe, who had +warned him not to kill the Bishop, had bewitched him. So M'wanga's +soldiers went and caught the lad and led him down to a place where +they lit a fire, and placing the boy over it, burned him slowly to +death. + +All through this time Mackay alone had not been really seriously +threatened, for his work and what he was made the King and the +Katikiro and even Mujasi afraid to do him to death. + +Then there came a tremendous thunderstorm. A flash of lightning smote +the King's house and it flamed up and burned to ashes. Then King +M'wanga seemed to go mad. He threatened to slay Mackay himself. + +"Take, seize, burn the Christians," he cried. And his executioners +and their minions rushed out, captured forty-six men and boys, slashed +their arms from their bodies with their cruel curved knives so that +they could not struggle, and then placed them over the ghastly flames +which slowly wrung the lives from their tortured bodies. Yet the +numbers of the Christians seemed to grow with persecution. + +The King himself beat one boy, Apolo Kagwa, with a stick and smote him +on the head, then knocked him down, kicked and stamped upon him. Then +the King burned all his books, crying, "Never read again." + +The other men and boys who had become Christians were now scattered +over the land in fear of their lives. Mackay, however, come what may, +determined to hold on. He set his little printing press to work and +printed off a letter which he sent to the scattered Christians. In +Mackay's letter was written these words, "In days of old Christians +were hated, were hunted, were driven out and were persecuted for +Jesus' sake, and thus it is to-day. Our beloved brothers, do not deny +our Lord Jesus!" + +At last M'wanga's mad cruelties grew so frightful that all his people +rose in rebellion and drove him from the throne, so that he had to +wander an outcast by the lake-side. Mackay at that time was working +by the lake, and he offered to shelter the deposed King who had only a +short time before threatened his life. + + * * * * * + +Two years passed; and Mackay, on the lake-side, was building a new +boat in which he hoped to sail to other villages to teach the people. +Then a fever struck him. He lay lingering for some days. Then he +died--aged only forty-one. + +If Mackay, instead of becoming a missionary, had entered the +engineering profession he might have become a great engineer. When he +was a missionary in Africa, the British East Africa Company offered +him a good position. He refused it. General Gordon offered him a high +position in his army in Egypt. He refused it. + +He held on when his friends and the Church Missionary Society called +him home. This is what he said to them, "What is this you write--'Come +home'? Surely now, in our terrible dearth of workers, it is not the +time for anyone to desert his post. Send us only our first twenty men, +and I may be tempted to come to help you to find the second twenty." + +He died when quite young; homeless, after a life in constant danger +from fever and from a half-mad tyrant king--his Christian disciples +having been burned. + +Was it worth while? + +To-day the Prime Minister of Uganda is Apolo Kagwa, who as a boy +was kicked and beaten and stamped upon by King M'wanga for being +a Christian; and the King of Uganda, Daudi, M'wanga's son, is a +Christian. At the capital there stands a fine cathedral in which brown +Baganda clergy lead the prayers of the Christian people. On the place +where the boys were burned to death there stands a Cross, put there by +70,000 Baganda Christians in memory of the young martyrs. + +Was their martyrdom worth while? + +To-day all the slave raiding has ceased for ever; innocent people are +not slaughtered to appease the gods; the burning of boys alive has +ceased. + +Mackay began the work. He made the first rough road and as he made it +he wrote: "This will certainly yet be a highway for the King Himself; +and all that pass this way will come to know His name." + +"And a highway shall be there and a way; and it shall be a way of +holiness." + +But the Way is not finished. And the last words that Mackay wrote +were: "Here is a sphere for your energies. Bring with you your highest +education and your greatest talents, and you will find scope for the +exercise of them all." + +FOOTNOTES: + +[Footnote 55: There is no record of the precise words, but Mackay +gives the argument in a letter home.] + + + + +CHAPTER XXI + +THE BLACK APOSTLE OF THE LONELY LAKE + +_Shomolekae_ + + +In the garden in Africa where, you remember, David Livingstone +plighted troth with Mary Moffat, as they stood under an almond tree, +there lived years ago a chocolate-skinned, curly-haired boy. His name +was Shomolekae.[56] + +His work was to go among the fruit trees, when the peaches and +apricots were growing and to shout and make a noise to scare away the +birds. If he had not done this they would have eaten up all the fruit. +This boy was born in Africa over seventy-five years ago, when Victoria +was a young queen. + +In the same garden was a grown-up gardener, also an African, with a +dark face and crisp, curly hair. The grown-up gardener one day stole +some of the fruit off the trees, and he went to the little boy, +Shomolekae, and offered him some apricots. + +Now, Shomolekae had learned to love the missionary, Mr. Mackenzie, +who had come to live in the house at Kuruman. He knew that it was very +wrong of the gardener to steal the fruit and throw the blame on the +birds. So he said that he would not touch the fruit. He went to an old +black friend of his named Paul and said to him: + +"The gardener has stolen the apples and plums and has asked me to eat +them. He has robbed Mr. Mackenzie. I do not know what to do." + +And old Paul went and told John Mackenzie, who took notice of the boy +Shomolekae and learned to trust him. + +Many months passed by; and two years later John Mackenzie was going +to a place further north in Africa than Kuruman. The name of this town +was Shoshong, where Mackenzie would live and teach the people about +Jesus Christ. So he went to the father of Shomolekae, whose name was +Sebolai. + +"Sebolai," said John Mackenzie, "I want to take your son, Shomolekae, +with me to Shoshong." + +Sebolai replied: "I am willing that my son should come to live with +you, but one thing I desire. It is that he should be taught his +reading and to know the stories in the Bible and such things." + +To this John Mackenzie quickly agreed, for he too desired that the boy +should read. + +So the sixteen oxen were yoked to the big wagon, and amid much +shouting and cracking of whips and lowing of oxen and creaking of +wagon-joints, John Mackenzie, Shomolekae, and the others, started from +Kuruman northward to Shoshong. + +Now, at Shoshong the chief was Sekhome, who, you remember, in our last +story, was father to Khama. So when they were at Shoshong, Shomolekae, +the young man who was cook, and Khama, the young man who was the son +of the chief, worshipped in the same little church together. It was +not such a church as you go to in our country--but just a little place +made of mud bricks that had been dried in the sun. There were holes +instead of windows, and there was no door in the open doorway; and on +the top of the little building was a roof of rough, reedy grass. + +These were the days that you heard of in the last story, when Khama, +seeing his tribe attacked by the fierce Lobengula, rode out on +horseback at the head of his regiment of cavalry and fought them and +beat them, and drove away Lobengula with a bullet in his neck. + +For two years Shomolekae, learning to read better every day, and +serving John Mackenzie faithfully in his house, lived at Shoshong. + +Sometimes Shomolekae took long journeys with wagon and oxen, and at +the end of two years he went with Mackenzie a great way in order to +buy windows, doors, hinges, nails, corrugated iron, and timber with +which to build a better church at Shoshong. + +When Shomolekae came back again with the wagons loaded up there was +great excitement in the tribe. Hammers and saws, screw-drivers and +chisels were busy day after day, and the missionary and his helpers +laid the bricks one upon another until there rose up a strong church +with windows and a door--a place in which the people went to worship +God the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. + +Again Shomolekae went away by wagon, and this time he travelled away +by the edge of the desert southward until at last he reached the +garden at Kuruman where as a boy he used to frighten the birds from +the fruit trees. He was now a very clever man at driving wagons and +oxen. + +This, as you know, is not so easy as driving a wagon with two horses +is in Britain. For there were as many as sixteen and even eighteen +oxen harnessed two by two to the long iron chains in front of the +wagon. + +There were no roads, only rough tracks, and the wagon would drag +through the deep sand, or bump over great boulders of rock, or sink +into wet places by the river. But at such times one of the natives +always led the two front oxen through the river with a long thong that +was fastened to their horns. + +So, in order to drive a wagon well, Shomolekae needed to be able to +manage sixteen oxen all at once, and keep them walking in a straight +line. He needed to know which were the bad-tempered ones and which +were the good, and which pulled best in one part of the span and which +in another; and how to keep them all pulling together and not lunging +at one another with their horns. + +Shomolekae also had to be so bold and daring that, if lions came to +eat the oxen at night, he could go with the gun and either frighten +them away or actually shoot them. + +So you see Shomolekae was very clever, and was full of good courage. + +While he was living at Kuruman a man came to him one day and said: + +"John Mackenzie is alone at Shoshong, and there is no one who can +drive his wagon well for him." + +The man who told him this was, as it happened, going by wagon to +Shoshong, where John Mackenzie lived. + +"Let me go with you," said Shomolekae. + +So he got up into the wagon, and away they went day after day +northward on the same journey that Shomolekae had taken when he was a +boy. + +So Shomolekae served Mackenzie for years as wagon driver at Shoshong. + +At last the time came when Mackenzie himself left the tribe at +Shoshong--left Khama and all his people--and travelled southward to +build at Kuruman a kind of small school where he could train young +black men to be missionaries to their own people. And Shomolekae +himself went to Kuruman with Mackenzie. He set to work with his own +hands, and he helped to make and lay bricks, to put in the doors and +windows, and to place the roof on the walls, until at last the little +school was built. + +And when it was actually built Shomolekae himself went to be a student +there, and Mackenzie began to train him to be a preacher and a teacher +to his own people. + +For three years Shomolekae worked hard in the college, learning more +and more about Jesus Christ, preparing himself to go among his own +people to tell them about Him. + +At last the time came when he was ready to go; and he started out, and +travelled long, long miles through sandy places, and then by a +river, until at last he reached a town of little thatched huts called +Pitsani, which means "The Town of the Little Hyena." + +In that town he gathered the men and women and the boys and girls +together and taught them the things that he knew. + +While Shomolekae was at Pitsani there came into that part of Africa a +new missionary, whose name was Mr. Wookey. + +It was decided that Mr. Wookey should go a long, long journey and +settle down by the shores of Lake Ngami, which, you remember, David +Livingstone had discovered long years before. + +Shomolekae wished to go out with Mr. Wookey into this country and to +help. So he took the wagon and yoked the oxen to it, loaded it up with +food and all the things needed for cooking as they travelled along, +and drove the oxen dragging the wagon over many hundreds of miles of +country in which leopards barked and lions roared, until at last they +came to the land near Lake Ngami. + +When they came into this land, and found a place in which to settle +down, clever Shomolekae mixed earth into mud just as boys and girls +do in order to make mud-pies, but he made the mud into the shape of +bricks, and then placed the bricks of mud out into the sun to dry. + +The sunshine was very, very hot indeed--so hot that the bricks became +hard and dry and strong. Day after day Shomolekae worked until he had +made a big heap of bricks. With these he built a little house for Mr. +Wookey to live in. But these sun-dried bricks soon spoil if they get +wet, so he had to build a verandah to keep the rain from the walls. + +When the house was built and Mr. Wookey was settled in it, they +travelled still further up the river to learn what people were living +there. + +After a while it was decided that Shomolekae should go and live in a +small village by the river, and there again begin his work of telling +the men and women of Jesus Christ, and teaching the boys and girls to +read. + +In his satchel, which was made of odd bits of calico print of +different patterns, Shomolekae had a hymn-book with music. The +hymn-book was written in the language of the people--the Sechuana +language--and Shomolekae taught them from the book to sing hymns. The +music was the sol-fa notation. + +This is one of the hymns: + + 1. "Yesu oa me oa nthata, + Leha ke le mo dibin; + A re yalo mo kwalon, + A re yalo mo pedun. + + E, Yesu oa me, + E, Yesu oa me, + E, Yesu oa me, + Oa me, mo loraton. + + 2. "Yesu oa me oa nthata, + O ntehetse molato; + O mpusitse timelon, + O ntlhapisa mo pedun. + + "E, Yesu oa me," etc. + +This is what these words mean in English. I expect you know them very +well. + + 1. "Jesus loves me, this I know, + For the Bible tells me so; + Little ones to Him belong, + They are weak, but He is strong. + + "Yes, Jesus loves me, + Yes, Jesus loves me, + Yes, Jesus loves me-- + The Bible tells me so. + + 2. "Jesus loves me, He who died + Heaven's gate to open wide; + He will wash away my sin, + Let His little child come in. + + "Yes, Jesus loves me," etc. + +But, you see, the missionary had to alter the words sometimes so as to +make the Sechuana lines come right for the music; and the second verse +really means: + + "My Jesus loves me; + He has paid my debt; + He has brought me back from where I strayed; + He has washed my heart. + + Yes, my Jesus, Yes, my Jesus. + Yes, my Jesus. Mine in love." + +They would learn the words off by heart because there was only the +one hymn-book, and they would sing them together, Shomolekae's voice +leading. + +They learned them so well that sometimes when the mothers were out +hoeing in the fields, or the little boys were paddling in their canoes +and fishing in the marshy waters, you would hear them singing the +hymns that they learned in Shomolekae's little school hut. + +Then on Sunday they would have Sunday-school, and when that was over +Shomolekae would gather the chocolate-faced men and women and boys and +girls together--all who would come--and he would teach them to kneel +down and pray to the one God, Who is our Father, and they would sing +the hymns that they had learned, and then he would speak to them a +simple little address, telling them of the Lord Jesus. + +But Shomolekae desired always to go further and further, even though +it was dangerous and difficult. So he got a canoe and launched it +in the river by the village and paddled further and further up the +stream, under the overhanging trees, and sometimes across the deep +pools in which the big and fierce hippopotami and crocodiles lived. + +He paddled up the River Okanvango, though many times he was in danger +of his life. The river was not like rivers in our own country, deep +and with strong banks; it was often filled all over with reeds, and +as shallow as a swamp, and poor Shomolekae had to push his way +with difficulty through these reeds. Always at night the poisonous +mosquitoes came buzzing and humming around him. The evil-tempered +hippopotamus would suddenly come up from the bottom of the river with +his wicked beady eyes, and great cavernous mouth, with its enormous +teeth, yawning at Shomolekae as though he quite meant to swallow him +whole. + +On the banks at night the lions would roar, and then the hyenas would +howl; but Shomolekae's brave heart held on, and he pushed on up the +river to preach and teach the people in the villages near the river. + +So through many years, with high courage and simple faith, Shomolekae +worked. + +A good many boys and girls in England before they are ten years old +own many more books than Shomolekae ever had and have read more than +he. They also have better homes than he, for he pushed on from one +mud hut to another along the rivers and lakes, and all the possessions +that he had in the world could be put into the bottom of his canoe. + +But our Heavenly Father, Who loves you and me, went with him every +step of the way. When Shomolekae taught the boys and girls to sing +hymns in praise of Jesus, even in a little mud hut, He was there, just +as He is in the most beautiful church when we worship Him. Now God has +taken Shomolekae across the last river to be with Himself. + +Shomolekae was a negro with dark skin and curly hair. We are white +children with fair faces and light hair. But God is his Father as well +as ours and loves us all alike and wishes to gather us together round +Him--loving Him and one another. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[Footnote 56: Pronounce Shoh-moh-leh-kei.] + + + + +CHAPTER XXII + +THE WOMAN WHO CONQUERED CANNIBALS + +_Mary Slessor_ + +(Dates, b. 1848, d. 1915) + + +I. THE MILL-GIRL + +_The Calabar Girls at the Station_ + +As the train from the south slowed down in Waverley Station, +Edinburgh, one day in 1898, a black face, with eyes wide open with +wonder, appeared at the window. The carriage door opened and a little +African girl was handed down onto the platform. + +The people on the station stopped to glance at the strange negro face. +But as a second African girl a little older than the first stepped +from the carriage to the platform, and a third, and then a fourth +black girl appeared, the cabmen and porters stood staring in amused +curiosity. + +Who was that strange woman (they asked one another), short and slight, +with a face like yellow parchment and with short, straight brown hair, +who smiled as she gathered the little tribe of African girls round her +on the railway platform? + +The telegraph boys and the news-boys gazed at her in astonishment. +But they would have been transfixed with amazement if they had known +a tenth of the wonder of the story of that heroic woman who, just +as simply as she stood there on the Waverley platform, had mastered +cannibals, conquered wild drunken chiefs brandishing loaded muskets, +had faced hunger and thirst under the flaming heat and burning fevers +of Africa, and walked unscathed by night through forests haunted by +ferocious leopards, to triumph over regiments of frenzied savages +drawn up for battle, had rescued from death hundreds of baby twins +thrown out to be eaten by ants--and had now brought home to Scotland +from West Africa four of these her rescued children. + +Still more would those Scottish boys at Waverley Station have +wondered, as they gazed on the little woman and her group of black +children, if they had known that the woman who had done these things, +Mary Slessor, had been a Scottish factory girl, who had toiled at her +weaving machine from six in the morning till six at night amid the +whirr of the belts, the flash of the shuttles, the rattle of the +looms, and the roar of the great machines. + +Born in Aberdeen, December 2, 1848, Mary Slessor was the daughter of +a Scottish shoemaker. Her mother was a gentle and sweet-faced woman. +After her father's death Mary was the mainstay of the home. Working +in a weaving shed in Dundee (whither the family moved when Mary was +eleven) she educated herself while at her machine. + +_The Call to Africa_ + +Like Livingstone, she taught herself with her book propped up on +the machine at which she worked. She read his travels and heard the +stories of his fight against slavery for Africa, till he became her +hero. + +One day the news flashed round the world: "Livingstone is dead. His +heart is buried in Central Africa." Mary had thrilled as she read the +story of his heroic and lonely life. Now he had fallen. She heard in +her heart the words that he had spoken: + +"I go to Africa to try to make an open door....; do you carry out the +work which I have begun. I LEAVE IT WITH YOU." + +As Mary sat, tired with her week's work, in her pew in the church on +Sunday, and thought of Livingstone's call to Africa, she saw visions +of far-off places of which she heard from the pulpit and read in her +magazines--visions of a steaming river on the West Coast of Africa +where the alligators slid from the mud banks into the water; visions +of the barracoons on the shore in which the captured negroes were +penned as they waited for the slave-ships; pictures of villages where +trembling prisoners dipped their hands in boiling oil to test their +guilt, and wives were strangled to go with their dead chief into the +spirit-land; visions of the fierce chiefs who could order a score of +men to be beheaded for a cannibal feast and then sell a hundred more +to be hounded away into the outer darkness of slavery--the Calabar +where the missionaries of her church were fighting the black darkness +of the most savage people of the world. + +Mary Slessor made up her mind to go out and give her whole life to +Africa. So she offered herself, a timorous girl who could not cross a +field with a cow in it, as a missionary for cannibal Calabar, in West +Africa. + +For twelve years she worked at the centre of the mission in Calabar +and then flung herself into pioneer work among the terrible tribe +of Okoyong. No one had ever been able to influence them. They defied +British administration. For fifteen years she strove there, and won +a power over the ferocious Okoyong savages such as no one has ever +wielded. "I'm a wee, wee wifie," she said, "no very bookit, but I grip +on well none the less." + +To-day over two thousand square miles of forest and rivers, +the dark savages, as they squat at night in the forest +around their palaver-fires, tell one another stories of the +Great-White-Ma-Who-Lived-Alone, and the stories they tell are like +these. + + +II. THE HEALING OF THE CHIEF + +_Through the Forest in the Rain_ + +A strange quiet lay over all the village by the river. For the chief +lay ill in his hut. The Calabar people were waiting on the tip-toe of +suspense. For if the chief died many of them would be slain to go +with him into the spirit-world--his wives and some of his soldiers and +slaves. + +Suddenly a strange African woman, who had come over from another +village, entered the chief's harem. She spoke to the wives of the +chief, saying, "There lives away through the forest at Ekenge a white +Ma who can cast out by her magic the demons who are killing your +chief. My son's child was dying, but the white Ma[57] saved her and +she is well to-day. Many other wonders has she done by the power of +her juju. Let your chief send for her and he will not die." + +There was silence and then eager chattering, for the women knew that +their very lives depended on the chief getting well. If he died, they +would be killed. + +They sent in word to the chief about the strange white Ma. + +"Let her be sent for," he ordered. "Send a bottle and four rods (value +about a shilling) and messengers to ask her to come." + +All through the day the messengers hurried over stream and hill, +through village after village and along the forest paths till at last, +after eight hours' journey, they came to the village of Ekenge. Going +to the courtyard of the chief they told him the story of their sick +chief, and their desire that the white Ma who lived in his village +should come and heal him. + +"She will say for herself what she will do," said the chief. + +So he sent a messenger to Mary Slessor. She soon came over from her +little house to learn what was needed of her. + +The story of the sick chief was again told. + +"What is the matter with your chief?" asked Mary Slessor. Blank faces +and nodding heads showed that they knew nothing at all. + +"I must go to him," she declared. She knew that the way was full of +perils, and that she might be killed by warriors and wild beasts; but +she knew too that, if she did not go and if the chief died, hundreds +of lives might be sacrificed. + +Chief Edem said, "There are warriors out in the woods and you will be +killed. You must not go." + +Ma Eme, a tall fat African widow of Ekenge village, who loved Mary +Slessor, said, "No, you must not go. The streams are deep; the rains +are come. You could never get there." + +But Mary Slessor said, "I _must_ go." + +"Then I will send women with you to look after you, and men to protect +you," said Chief Edem. + +Mary Slessor went back to her house to prepare to start on her long +dangerous journey in the morning. She could not sleep for wondering +whether she was indeed right to risk her life and all her work on the +off-chance of saving this distant sick chief. She knelt down and asked +God to guide her. Then she felt in her heart that she must go. + +In the morning at dawn a guard of Ekenge women came to her door. + +"The men will join us outside the village," they said. + +The skies were grey. The rain was falling as they started. When the +village lay behind them the rain began to pour in sheets. It came down +as only an African rain can, unceasing torrents of pitiless deluge. +Soon Mary Slessor's soaked boots became impossible to walk in. She +took them off and threw them into the bush; then her stockings went, +and she ploughed on in the mud in her bare feet. + +They had walked for three hours when, as the weather began to clear, +Mary Slessor came out into a market-place for neighbouring villages. +The hundreds of Africans who were bartering in the market-place turned +and stared at the strange white woman who swiftly passed through their +midst and disappeared into the bush beyond. + +So she pressed on for hour after hour, her head throbbing with fever, +her dauntless spirit driving her trembling, timid body onward till +at last, when she had been walking almost ceaselessly for over eight +hours, she tottered into the village of the sick chief. + + +_The Healing Hand._ + +Mary Slessor, aching from head to foot with fever and overwhelming +weariness, did not lie down even for a moment's rest, but walked +straight to the chief who lay senseless on his mat on the mud floor. +Having examined him she took from her little medicine chest a drug and +gave a dose to the chief. But she could see at once that more of this +medicine was needed than she had with her. She knew that, away on the +other side of the river, some hours distant, another missionary was +working. + +"You must go across the river to Ikorofiong for more medicine." + +"No, no!" they said, "we dare not go. They will slay any man who goes +there." + +She was in despair. Then someone said, "There is a man of that country +living in his canoe on the river. Perhaps he would go?" + +They ran down to the river and found him. After much persuading he at +last went, and returned next day with the medicine. + +The chief, whom the women had believed to be almost dead, gradually +recovered consciousness, then sat up and took food. At last he was +quite well. All the village laughed and sang for joy. There would be +no slaying. They gathered round Mary Slessor in grateful wonder at +her magic powers. She told them that she had come to them because +she worshipped the Great Physician Jesus Christ, the Son of the +Father--God who made all things. Then she gathered them together in +the morning and evening, and led them as with bowed heads they all +thanked God for the healing of the chief. + + +III. VALIANT IN FIGHT + +Years passed by and Mary Slessor's name was known in all the villages +for many miles. She was, to them, the white Ma who was brave and wise +and kind. She was mad, they thought, because she was always rescuing +the twin babies whom the Calabar people throw out to die and the +mothers of twins whom they often kill. But in some strange way they +felt that her wisdom, her skill in healing men, and her courage, which +was more heroic than that of their bravest warriors, came from the +Spirit who made all things. She would wrench guns from the hands of +drunken savage men who were three times as strong as she was. At last +she used to sit with their chief as judge of quarrels, and many times +in palavers between villages she stopped the people from going to war. + + +_Through the Forest Perilous_ + +One day a secret message came to her that, in some villages far away, +a man of one village had wounded the chief in another village and that +all the warriors were arming and holding councils of war. + +"I must go and stop it," said Mary Slessor. + +"You cannot," said her friends at Ekenge, "the steamer is coming to +take you home to Britain because you are so ill. You will miss the +boat. You are too ill to walk. The wild beasts in the woods will kill +you. The savage warriors are out, and will kill you in the dark--not +knowing who you are." + +"But I must go," she answered. + +The chief insisted that she must have two armed men with lanterns with +her, and that she must get the chief of a neighbouring village to send +out his drummer with her so that people might know--as they heard the +drum--that a protected person was travelling who must not be harmed. + +It was night, and Mary Slessor with her two companions marched out +into the darkness, the lanterns throwing up strange shadows that +looked like fierce men in the darkness. Through the night they walked +till at midnight they reached the village where they were to ask for +the drum. + +The chief was surly. + +"You are going to a warlike people," he said. "They will not listen to +what a woman says. You had better go back. I will not protect you." + +Mary Slessor was on her mettle. + +"When you think of the woman's power," she said to the chief, "you +forget the power of the woman's God. I shall go on." + +And to the amazement of the savages in the villages she went on into +the darkness. Surely she must be mad. She defied their chief who had +the power to kill her. She had walked on into a forest where ferocious +leopards abounded ready to spring out upon her, and where men were +drinking themselves into a fury of war. And for what? To try with a +woman's tongue to stop the fiery chiefs and the savages of a distant +warlike tribe from fighting. Surely she was mad. + + +_Facing the Warriors_ + +She pressed on through the darkness. Then she saw the dim outlines +of huts. Mary Slessor had reached the first town in the war area. She +found the hut where an old Calabar woman lived who knew the white Ma. + +"Who is there?" came a whisper from within. + +But even as she replied there was a swift patter of bare feet. Out of +the darkness leapt a score of armed warriors. They were all round her. +From all parts dark shadows sprang forward till scores of men with +their chiefs were jostling, chattering and threatening. + +"What have you come for?" they asked. + +"I have heard that you are going to war. I have come to ask you not to +fight," she replied. + +The chiefs hurriedly talked together, then they came to her and said-- + +"The white Ma is welcome. She shall hear all that we have to say +before we fight. All the same we shall fight. For here you see are men +wounded. We _must_ wipe out the disgrace that is put upon us. Now she +must rest. Women, you take care of the white Ma. We will call her at +cock-crow when we start." + +This meant an hour's sleep. Mary Slessor lay down in a hut. It seemed +as though her eyes were hardly shut before she was wakened again. She +stood, tottering with tiredness, when she heard the cry-- + +"Run, Ma, run!" + +The warriors were off down the hill away to the fight. She ran, but +they were quickly out of sight on the way to the attack. Was all her +trouble in vain? She pressed on weak and breathless, but determined. +She heard wild yells and the roll of the war drum. The warriors she +had followed were feverishly making ready to fight, a hundred yards +distant from the enemy's village. + +She went up to them and spoke sternly. + +"Behave like men," she said, "not like fools. Do not yell and shout. +Hold your peace. I am going into the village there." + +She pointed to the enemy. Then she walked forward. Ahead of her stood +the enemy in unbroken ranks of dark warriors. They stood like a solid +wall. She hailed them as she walked forward. + +There was an ominous silence. She laughed. + +"How perfect your manners are!" she exclaimed. She was about to walk +forward and force them to make way for her when an old chief stepped +out toward her and, to her amazement, knelt down at her feet. + +"Ma," he said, "we thank you for coming to us. We own that we wounded +the chief over there. It was only one of our men who did it. It was +not the act of all our town. We ask you that you will speak with our +enemy to bring them to peace with us." + +_The Healed Chief_ + +She looked into the face of the chief. Then she saw to her joy that +this was the very chief whom she had toiled through the rain to heal +long ago. Because of what she had done then, he was now at her feet +asking her to make peace. Should she run back and tell the warriors, +who a hundred yards away were spoiling for a fight? That was her first +joyful thought. Then she saw that she must first make her authority +stronger over the whole band of warriors. + +"Stay where you are," she said. "Some of you find a place where I can +sit in comfort; and bring me food. I will not starve while men fight. +Choose two or three men to speak well for you, and we will have two +men from your enemies." + +These grim warriors, so sullen and threatening a few moments ago, +obeyed her every word. At length two chiefs came from the other side +and stood on one side of her, while the two chiefs chosen in the +village came and threw down their arms and knelt at their feet. + +"Your chief," they said, "was wounded by a drunken youth. Do not let +us shed blood through all our villages because of what he did. If +you will cease from war with us, we will pay to you any fine that the +white Ma shall say." + +She, too, pressed them to stop their fighting. Word went back to the +warriors on both sides, who became wildly excited. Some agreed, others +stormed and raged till they were in a frenzy. Would they fight even +over her body? Furious warriors came moving up from both sides. But +by arguing and appealing at last she persuaded the warlike tribe to +accept a fine. + + +_The Promise of Peace_ + +The town whose drunken youth had wounded the enemy chief at once paid +a part of the fine. They used no money. So the fine was paid in casks +and bottles of trade gin. Mary Slessor trembled. For as the boxes of +gin bottles were brought forward the warriors pranced with excitement +and made ready to get drunk. She knew that this would make them fight +after all. What could she do? The roar of voices rose. She could +not make her own voice heard. A daring idea flashed into her mind. +According to the law of these Egbo people, clothes thrown over +anything give it the protection of your body. She snatched off her +skirt and all the clothing she could spare and spread them over the +gin. She seized the one glass that the tribe had, and doled out +one portion only to each chief to test whether the bottles indeed +contained spirit. At last they grew quieter and she spoke to them. + +"I am going," she said, "across the Great Waters to my home, and I +shall be away many moons. Promise me here, on both sides, that you +will not go to war with one another while I am away." + +"We promise," they said. They gathered around her and she told them +the story of Jesus Christ in whose name she had come to them. + +"Now," she said, "go to your rest and fight no more." And the tribes +kept their promise to her,--so that when she returned they could say, +"It is peace." + + * * * * * + +For nearly forty years she worked on in Calabar, stricken scores of +times with fever. She rescued her hundreds of twin babies thrown out +to die in the forest, stopped wars and ordeal by poison, made peace, +healed the sick. + +At last, too weak to walk, she was wheeled through the forests and +along the valleys by some of her "twins" now grown to strong children, +and died there--the conquering Queen of Calabar, who ruled in the +hearts of even the fiercest cannibals through the power of the Faith, +by which out of weakness she was made strong. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[Footnote 57: The African uses the word "Ma" as mother, (_a_) to +name a woman after her eldest son, _e.g._ Mrs. Livingstone was called +Ma-Robert; and (_b_) as in this case, for a woman whom they respect.] + + + + +Book Four: HEROINES AND HEROES OF PLATEAU AND DESERT + + + + +CHAPTER XXIII + +SONS OF THE DESERT + +_Abdallah and Sabat_ + +(Time of Incidents, about 1800-1810) + + +_Two Arab Wanderers_ + +One day, more than a hundred years ago, two young Arabs, Abdallah and +Sabat, rode on their camels toward a city that was hidden among the +tawny hills standing upon the skyline. + +The sun was beginning to drop toward the edge of the desert away in +the direction of the Red Sea. The shadows of the long swinging legs of +the camels wavered in grotesque lines on the sand. There was a look +of excited expectation in the eyes of the young Arabs; for, by sunset, +their feet would walk the city of their dreams. + +They were bound for Mecca, the birthplace of Mohammed, the Holy City +toward which every man of the Mohammedan world turns five times a day +as he cries, "There is no God but Allah, and Mohammed is the prophet +of Allah." To have worshipped in Mecca before the sacred Kaaba and +to have kissed the black stone in its wall--this was to make Paradise +certain for them both. Having done that pilgrimage these two Arabs, +Sabat and Abdallah, would be able to take the proud title of "Haji" +which would proclaim to every man that they had been to Mecca--the +Holy of Holies. + +So they pressed on by the valley between the hills till they saw +before them the roofs and the minarets of Mecca itself. As darkness +rushed across the desert and the stars came out, the tired camels +knelt in the courtyard of the Khan,[58] and Sabat and Abdallah +alighted and stretched their cramped legs, and took their sleep. + +These young men, Sabat and Abdallah, the sons of notable Arab chiefs, +had struck up a great friendship. Now, each in company with his chum, +they were together at the end of the greatest journey that an Arab can +take. + +As the first faint flush of pink touched the mountain beyond Mecca, +the cry came from the minaret: "Come to prayer. Prayer is better than +sleep. There is no God but Allah." + +Sabat and Abdallah were already up and out, and that day they said the +Mohammedan prayer before the Kaaba itself with other pilgrims who had +come from many lands--from Egypt and Abyssinia, from Constantinople +and Damascus, Baghdad and Bokhara, from the defiles of the Khyber +Pass, from the streets of Delhi and the harbour of Zanzibar. + +We do not know what Abdallah looked like. He was probably like most +young Arab chieftains, a tall, sinewy man--brown-faced, dark-eyed, +with hair and a short-cropped beard that were between brown and black. + +His friend Sabat was, however, so striking that even in that great +crowd of many pilgrims people would turn to look at him. They would +turn round, for one reason, because of Sabat's voice. Even when he was +just talking to his friend his voice sounded like a roar; when he got +excited and in a passion (as he very often did) it rolled like thunder +and was louder than most men's shouting. As he spoke his large white +teeth gleamed in his wide mouth. His brown face and black arched +eyebrows were a dark setting for round eyes that flashed as he spoke. +His black beard flowed over his tawny throat and neck. Gold earrings +swung with his agitation and a gold chain gleamed round his neck. He +wore a bright silk jacket with long sleeves, and long, loose-flowing +trousers and richly embroidered shoes with turned-up toes. From a +girdle round his waist hung a dagger whose handle and hilt flashed +with jewels. + +Abdallah and Sabat were better educated than most Arabs, for they +could both read. But they were not men who could stay in one place +and read and think in quiet. When they had finished their worship at +Mecca, they determined to ride far away across the deserts eastward, +even to Kabul in the mountains of Afghanistan. So they rode, first +northward up the great camel-route toward Damascus, and then eastward. +In spite of robbers and hungry jackals, through mountain gorges, over +streams, across the Syrian desert from oasis to oasis, and then across +the Euphrates and the Tigris they went, till they had climbed rung by +rung the mountain ranges that hold up the great plateau of Persia. + +At last they broke in upon the rocky valleys of Afghanistan and came +to the gateway of India--to Kabul. They presented themselves to Zeman +Shah, the ruler of Afghanistan, and he was so taken with Abdallah's +capacity that he asked him to be one of his officers in the court. +So Abdallah stayed in Kabul. But the restless, fiery Sabat turned the +face of his camel westward and rode back into Persia to the lovely +city of Bokhara. + + +_Abdallah the Daring_ + +In Kabul there was an Armenian whose name we do not know: but he +owned a book printed in Arabic, a book that Abdallah could read. The +Armenian lent it to him. There were hardly any books in Arabic, so +Abdallah took this book and read it eagerly. As he read, he thought +that he had never in all his life heard of such wonderful things, +and he could feel in his very bones that they were true. He read four +short true stories in this book: they were what we call the Gospels +according to Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. As he read, Abdallah saw in +the stories Someone who was infinitely greater than Mohammed--One who +was so strong and gentle that He was always helping children and women +and people who were ill; so good that He always lived the very life +that God willed; and so brave that He died rather than give in to evil +men--our Lord Jesus Christ. + +"I worship Him," said Abdallah in his heart. Then he did a very daring +thing. He knew that if he turned Christian it would be the duty of +Mohammedans to kill him. Why not keep quiet and say nothing about his +change of heart? But he could not. He decided that he must come out +in the open and confess the new Captain of his life. He was baptized a +Christian. + +The Moslems were furious. To save his life Abdallah fled on his camel +westward to Bokhara. But the news that he had become a Christian flew +even faster than he himself rode. As he went along the streets of +Bokhara he saw his friend Sabat coming toward him. As a friend, Sabat +desired to save Abdallah; but as a Moslem, the cruel law of Mohammed +said that he must have him put to death. And Sabat was a fiery, +hot-tempered Moslem. + +"I had no pity," Sabat told his friends afterward. "I delivered him up +to Morad Shah, the King." + +So Abdallah was bound and carried before the Moslem judges. His friend +Sabat stood by watching, just as Saul had stood watching them stone +Stephen nearly eighteen centuries earlier. + +"You shall be given your life and be set free," they said, "if you +will spit upon the Cross and renounce Christ and say, 'There is no God +but Allah.'" + +"I refuse," said Abdallah. + +A sword was brought forward and unsheathed. Abdallah's arm was +stretched out: the sword was lifted--it flashed--and Abdallah's hand, +cut clean off, fell on the ground, while the blood spurted from his +arm. + +"Your life will still be given you if you renounce Christ and proclaim +Allah and Mohammed as His prophet." + +This is how Sabat himself described what happened next. "Abdallah made +no answer, but looked up steadfastly toward heaven, like Stephen, the +first martyr, his eyes streaming with tears. He looked at me," said +Sabat, "but it was with the countenance of forgiveness." + +Abdallah's other arm was stretched out, again the sword flashed and +fell. His other hand dropped to the ground. He stood there bleeding +and handless. He bowed his head and his neck was bared to the sword. +Again the blade flashed. He was beheaded, and Sabat--Sabat who had +ridden a thousand miles with his friend and had faced with him +the blistering sun of the desert and the snow-blizzard of the +mountain--saw Abdallah's head lie there on the ground and the dead +body carried away. + +Abdallah had died because he was faithful to Jesus Christ and because +Sabat had obeyed the law of Mohammed. + + +_The Old Sabat and the New_ + +The news spread through Bokhara like a forest fire. They could hardly +believe that a man would die for the Christian faith like that. As +Sabat told his friends afterward, "All Bokhara seemed to say, 'What +new thing is this?'" + +But Sabat was in agony of mind. Nothing that he could do would take +away from his eyes the vision of his friend's face as Abdallah had +looked at him when his hands were being cut off. He plunged out on +to the camel tracks of Asia to try to forget. He wandered far and he +wandered long, but he could not forget or find rest for his tortured +mind. + +At last he sailed away on the seas and landed on the coast of India at +Madras. The British East India Company then ruled in India, and they +gave Sabat a post in the civil courts as mufti, _i.e._ as an expounder +of the law of Mohammed. He spent most of his time in a coast town +north of Madras, called Vizagapatam.[59] A friend handed to him +there a little book in his native language--Arabic. It was another +translation of those stories that Abdallah had read in Kabul--it was +the New Testament.[60] + +Sabat sat reading this New Book. He then took up the book of +Mohammed's law--the Koran--which it was his daily work to explain. He +compared the two. "The truth came"--as he himself said--"like a flood +of light." He too began to worship Jesus Christ, whose life he had +read now for the first time in the New Testament. Sabat decided that +he must follow in Abdallah's footsteps. He became a Christian.[61] He +was then twenty-seven years of age. + + +_The Brother's Dagger_ + +In the world of the East news travels like magic by Arab dhow (sailing +ship) and camel caravan. Very quickly the news was in Arabia that +Sabat had renounced Mohammed and become a Christian. At once Sabat's +brother rose, girded on his dagger, left the tents of his tribe, +mounted his camel and coursed across Arabia to a port. There he took +ship for Madras. Landing, he disguised himself as an Indian and went +up to Vizagapatam to the house where his brother Sabat was living. + +Sabat saw this Indian, as he appeared to be, standing before him. He +suspected nothing. Suddenly the disguised brother put his hand within +his robe, seized his dagger, and leaping at Sabat made a fierce blow +at him. Sabat flung out his arm. He spoilt his brother's aim, but +he was too late to save himself. He was wounded, but not killed. The +brother threw off his disguise, and Sabat--remembering the forgiveness +of Abdallah--forgave his brother, gave him many presents, and sent +loving messages to his mother. + +Sabat decided that he could no longer work as an expounder of Moslem +law: he wanted to do work that would help to spread the Christian +Faith. He went away north to Calcutta, and there he joined the +great men who were working at the task of translating the Bible into +different languages and printing them. This work pleased Sabat, for +was it not through reading an Arabic New Testament that all his own +life had been changed? + +Because Sabat knew Persian as well as Arabic he was sent to help a +very clever young chaplain from England named Henry Martyn, who was +busily at work translating the New Testament into Persian and Arabic. +So Sabat went up the Ganges to Cawnpore with Henry Martyn. + +Sabat's fiery temper nearly drove Martyn wild. His was a flaming Arab +spirit, hot-headed and impetuous; yet he would be ready to die for +the man he cared for; proud and often ignorant, yet simple--as Martyn +said, "an artless child of the desert." + +Sabat's knowledge of Persian was not really so good as he himself +thought it was, and some of the Indian translators at Calcutta +criticised his translation. At this he got furiously angry, and, like +St. Peter, the fiery, impetuous apostle, he denied Jesus Christ and +spoke against Christianity. + +With his heart burning with rage and his great voice thundering with +anger, Sabat left his friends, went aboard ship and sailed down the +Bay of Bengal by the Indo-Chinese coast till he came to Penang, where +he began to live as a trader. + +But by this time the fire of his anger had burnt itself out. He--again +like Peter--remembered his denial of his Master, and when he saw in +a Penang newspaper an article saying that the famous Sabat, who had +become a Christian and then become a Mohammedan again, had come to +live in their city, he wrote a letter which was published in the +newspaper at Penang declaring that he was now--and for good and all--a +Christian. + +A British officer named Colonel MacInnes was stationed at Penang. +Sabat went to him. "My mind is full of great sorrow," he said, +"because I denied Jesus Christ. I have not had a moment's peace since +Satan made me do that bad work. I did it for revenge. I only want to +do one thing with my life: to spend it in undoing this evil that has +come through my denial." + +Sabat left the house of the Mohammedan with whom he was living in +Penang. He found an old friend of his named Johannes, an Armenian +Christian merchant, who had lived in Madras in the very days when +Sabat first became a Christian. Every night Johannes the Armenian +and Sabat the Arab got out their Bibles, and far into the night Sabat +would explain their meaning to Johannes. + +_The Prince from Sumatra_ + +One day all Penang was agog with excitement because a brown Prince +from Acheen, a Malay State in the island of Sumatra, had suddenly +sailed into the harbour. He was in flight from his own land, where +rebels had attacked him. The people of Acheen were wild and ferocious; +many of them were cannibals. + +"I will join you in helping to recover your throne," said Sabat to the +fugitive Prince. "I am going," said Sabat to Colonel MacInnes, "to see +if I can carry the message of Christianity to this fierce people." + +So Sabat and the Prince, with others, went aboard a sailing ship and +crossed the Strait of Malacca to Sumatra. They landed, and for long +the struggle with the rebels swayed from side to side. The Prince was +so pleased with Sabat that he made him his Prime Minister. But the +struggle dragged on and on; there seemed to be no hope of triumph. At +last Sabat decided to go back to Penang. One day he left the Prince +and started off, but soldiers of the rebel-chief Syfoolalim captured +him. + +Great was the joy of the rebels--their powerful enemy was in their +hands! They bound him, threw him into a boat, hoisted him aboard a +sailing ship and clapped him in the stifling darkness of the hold. As +he lay there he pierced his arm to make it bleed, and, with the blood +that came out, wrote on a piece of paper that was smuggled out and +sent to Penang to Colonel MacInnes. + +The agonies that Sabat suffered in the gloom and filth of that ship's +hold no one will ever know. We can learn from the words that he wrote +in the blood from his own body that they loaded worse horrors upon +him because he was a Christian. All the scene is black, but out of the +darkness comes a voice that makes us feel that Sabat was faithful at +the end. In his last letter to Colonel MacInnes he told how he was now +ready (like his friend Abdallah) to die for the sake of that Master +whom he had in his rage denied. + +Then one day his cruel gaolers came to the hold where he lay, and, +binding his limbs, thrust him into a sack, which they then closed. In +the choking darkness of the sack he was carried on deck and dragged +to the side of the ship. He heard the lapping of the waves. He felt +himself lifted and then hurled out into the air, and down--down with a +crash into the waters of the sea, which closed over him for ever. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[Footnote 58: The inn of the Near East--a square courtyard with all +the doors and windows inside, with primitive stables and bunks for the +camelmen, and sometimes rooms for the well-to-do travellers.] + +[Footnote 59: Pronounce Vi-zah'-ga-pat-ahm.] + +[Footnote 60: The Arabic New Testament revised by Solomon Negri and +sent to India by the Society for the Promotion of Christian Knowledge +in the middle of the eighteenth century.] + +[Footnote 61: Baptized "Nathaniel" at Madras by the Rev. Dr Kerr.] + + + + +CHAPTER XXIV + +A RACE AGAINST TIME + +_Henry Martyn_ + +(Dates, b. 1781, d. 1812. Time of Incident 1810-12) + + +In the story of Sabat that was told in the previous chapter you will +remember that, for a part of the time that he lived in India, he +worked with an Englishman named Henry Martyn. + +Sabat was almost a giant; Henry Martyn was slight and not very strong. +Yet--as we shall see in the story that follows--Henry Martyn was +braver and more constant than Sabat himself. + +As a boy Henry, who was born and went to school in Truro, in Cornwall, +in the West of England, was violently passionate, sensitive, and +physically rather fragile, and at school was protected from bullies by +a big boy, the son of Admiral Kempthorne. + +He left school at the age of fifteen and shot and read till he was +seventeen. In 1797 he became an undergraduate at St. John's College, +Cambridge. He was still very passionate. + +For instance, when a man was "ragging" him in the College Hall at +dinner, he was so furious that he flung a knife at him, which stuck +quivering in the panelling of the wall. Kempthorne, his old friend, +was at Cambridge with him. They used to read the Bible together and +Martyn became a real Christian and fought hard to overcome his violent +temper. + +He was a very clever scholar and became a Fellow of Jesus College in +1802. He at that time took orders in the Church of England. He became +very keen on reading about missionary work, e.g. Carey's story of +nine years' work in _Periodical Accounts_, and the L.M.S. Report on +Vanderkemp in South Africa. "I read nothing else while it lasted," he +said of the Vanderkemp report. + +He was accepted as a chaplain of the East India Company. They could +not sail till Admiral Nelson gave the word, because the French were +waiting to capture all the British ships. Five men-of-war convoyed +them when they sailed in 1805. They waited off Ireland, because the +immediate invasion of England by Napoleon was threatened. On board +Martyn worked hard at Hindustani, Bengali and Portuguese. He already +knew Greek, Latin and Hebrew. He arrived at Madras (South India) and +Calcutta and thence went to Cawnpore. It is at this point that our +yarn begins. + +A voice like thunder, speaking in a strange tongue, shouted across an +Indian garden one night in 1809. + +The new moon, looking "like a ball of ebony in an ivory cup,"--as one +who was there that night said--threw a cold light over the palm trees +and aloes, on the man who was speaking and on those who were seated +around him at the table in the bungalow. + +Beyond the garden the life of Cawnpore moved in its many streets; +the shout of a donkey-driver, the shrill of a bugle from the barracks +broke sharply through the muffled sounds of the city. The June wind, +heavy with the waters of the Ganges which flows past Cawnpore, made +the night insufferably hot. But the heat did not trouble Sabat, the +wild son of the Arabian desert, who was talking--as he always did--in +a roaring voice that was louder than most men's shouting. He was +telling the story of Abdallah's brave death as a Christian martyr.[62] + +Quietly listening to Sabat's voice--though he could not understand +what he was saying--was a young Italian, Padre Julius Caesar, a monk of +the order of the Jesuits. On his head was a little skull-cap, over his +body a robe of fine purple satin held with a girdle of twisted silk. + +Near him sat an Indian scholar--on his dark head a full turban, and +about him richly-coloured robes. On the other side sat a little, thin, +copper-coloured Bengali dressed in white, and a British officer in his +scarlet and gold uniform, with his wife, who has told us the story of +that evening. + +Not one of these brightly dressed people was, however, the strongest +power there. A man in black clothes was the real centre of the group. +Very slight in build, not tall, clean-shaven, with a high forehead +and sensitive lips, young Henry Martyn seemed a stripling beside the +flaming Arab. Yet Sabat, with all his sound and fury, was no match for +the swift-witted, clear-brained young Englishman. Henry Martyn was a +chaplain in the army of the East India Company, which then ruled in +India. + +He was the only one of those who were listening to Sabat who could +understand what he was saying. When Sabat had finished his story, +Martyn turned, and, in his clear, musical voice translated it from +the Persian into Latin mixed with Italian for Padre Julius Caesar, +into Hindustani for the Indian scholar, into Bengali for the Bengal +gentleman, and into English for the British officer and his wife. +Martyn could also talk to Sabat himself both in Arabic and in Persian. + +As Martyn listened to the rolling sentences of Sabat, the Christian +Arab, he seemed to see the lands beyond India, away across the Khyber +Pass, where Sabat had travelled--Mesopotamia, Arabia, Persia. + +Henry Martyn knew that in all those lands the people were Mohammedans. +He wanted one thing above everything else in the world: that was +to give them all the chance of doing what Sabat and Abdallah had +done--the chance of reading in their own languages the one book in the +world that could tell them that God was a Father--the book of letters +and of biographies that we call the New Testament. + + +_The Toil of Brain_ + +There was not in the world a copy of the New Testament in good +Persian. To make one Henry Martyn slaved hard, far into the hot, +sultry Indian nights, with scores of mosquitoes "pinging" round his +lamp and his head, grinding at his Persian grammar, so that he could +translate the life of Jesus Christ into that language. + +Even while he was listening to Sabat's story in the bungalow at +Cawnpore, Martyn knew that he was so ill that he could not live for +many years more. The doctor said that he must leave India for a time +to be in a healthier place. Should he go home to England, where all +his friends were? He wanted that; but much more he wanted to go on +with his work. So he asked the doctor if he might go to Persia on the +way home, and he agreed. + +So Martyn went down from Cawnpore to Calcutta, and in a boat down the +Hoogli river to the little Arab coasting sailing ship the _Hummoudi_, +which hoisted sail and started on its voyage round India to Bombay. +Martyn read while on board the Old Testament in the original Hebrew +and the New Testament in the original Greek, so that he might +understand them better and make a more perfect translation into +Persian. He read the Koran of Mohammed so that he could argue with +the Persians about it. And he worked hard at Arabic grammar, and read +books in Persian. Yet he was for ever cracking jokes with his fellow +travellers, cooped up in the little ship on the hot tropical seas. + +From Bombay the governor granted Martyn a passage up the Persian Gulf +in the _Benares_, a ship in the Indian Navy that was going on a cruise +to finish the exciting work of hunting down the fierce Arab pirates +of the Persian Gulf. So on Lady Day, 1811, the sailors got her under +weigh and tacked northward up the Gulf, till at last, on May 21, the +roofs and minarets of Bushire hove in sight. Martyn, leaning over the +bulwarks, could see the town jutting out into the Gulf on a spit of +sand and the sea almost surrounding it. That day he set foot for the +first time on the soil of Persia. + +_Across Persia on a Pony_ + +Aboard ship Martyn had allowed his beard and moustache to grow. When +he landed at Bushire he bought and wore the clothes of a Persian +gentleman, so that he should escape from attracting everybody's notice +by wearing clothes such as the people had never seen before. + +No one who had seen the pale, clean-shaven clergyman in black silk +coat and trousers in Cawnpore would have recognised the Henry +Martyn who rode out that night on his pony with an Armenian servant, +Zechariah of Isfahan, on his long one hundred and seventy mile journey +from Bushire to Shiraz. He wore a conical cap of black Astrakhan fur, +great baggy trousers of blue, bright red leather boots, a light tunic +of chintz, and over that a flowing cloak. + +They went out through the gates of Bushire on to the great plain of +burning sand that stretched away for ninety miles ahead of them. They +travelled by night, because the day was intolerably hot, but even at +midnight the heat was over 100 degrees. It was a fine moonlight night; +the stars sparkled over the plain. The bells tinkled on the mules' +necks as they walked across the sand. All else was silent. + +At last dawn broke. Martyn pitched his little tent under a tree, +the only shelter he could get. Gradually the heat grew more and more +intense. He was already so ill that it was difficult to travel. + +"When the thermometer was above 112 degrees--fever heat," says Martyn, +"I began to lose my strength fast. It became intolerable. I wrapped +myself up in a blanket and all the covering I could get to defend +myself from the air. By this means the moisture was kept a little +longer upon the body. I thought I should have lost my senses. The +thermometer at last stood at 126 degrees. I concluded that death was +inevitable." + +At last the sun went down: the thermometer crept lower: it was night +and time to start again. But Martyn had not slept or eaten. He could +hardly sit upright on his pony. Yet he set out and travelled on +through the night. + +Next morning he had a little shelter of leaves and branches made, and +an Arab poured water on the leaves and on Martyn all day to try to +keep some of the frightful heat from him. But even then the heat +almost slew him. So they marched on through another night and then +camped under a grove of date palms. + +"I threw myself on the burning ground and slept," Martyn wrote. "When +the tent came up I awoke in a burning fever. All day I had recourse to +the wet towel, which kept me alive, but would allow of no sleep." + +At nine that night they struck camp. The ground threw up the heat that +it had taken from the sun during the day. So frightfully hot was the +air that even at midnight Martyn could not travel without a wet towel +round his face and neck. + +As the night drew on the plain grew rougher: then it began to rise +to the foothills and mountains. At last the pony and mules were +clambering up rough steep paths so wild that there was (as Martyn +said) "nothing to mark the road but the rocks being a little more +worn in one place than in another." Suddenly in the darkness the pony +stopped; dimly through the gloom Martyn could see that they were on +the edge of a tremendous precipice. A single step more would have +plunged him over, to be smashed on the rocks hundreds of feet below. +Martyn did not move or try to guide the beast: he knew that the pony +himself was the safest guide. In a minute or two the animal moved, and +step by step clambered carefully up the rock-strewn mountain-side. + +At last they came out on the mountain top, but only to find that they +were on the edge of a flat high plain--a tableland. The air was pure +and fresher; the mules and the travellers revived. Martyn's pony began +to trot briskly along. So, as dawn came up, they came in sight of a +great courtyard built by the king of that country to refresh pilgrims. + +Through night after night they tramped, across plateau and mountain +range, till they climbed the third range, and then plunged by a +winding rocky path into a wide valley where, at a great town called +Kazrun, in a garden of cypress trees was a summer-house. + +Martyn lay down on the floor but could not sleep, though he was +horribly weary. "There seemed," he said, "to be fire within my head, +my skin like a cinder." His heart beat like a hammer. + +They went on climbing another range of mountains, first tormented +by mosquitoes, then frozen with cold; Martyn was so overwhelmed with +sleep that he could not sit on his pony and had to hurry ahead to keep +awake and then sit down with his back against a rock where he fell +asleep in a second, and had to be shaken to wake up when Zechariah, +the Armenian mule driver, came up to where he was. + +They had at last climbed the four mountain rungs of the ladder to +Persia, and came out on June 11th, 1811, on the great plain where the +city of Shiraz stands. Here he found the host Jaffir Ali Khan, to whom +he carried his letters of introduction. Martyn in his Persian dress, +seated on the ground, was feasted with curries and rice, sweets cooled +with snow and perfumed with rose water, and coffee. + +Ali Khan had a lovely garden of orange trees, and in the garden Martyn +sat. Ill as he was, he worked day in and day out to translate the life +of Jesus Christ in the New Testament from the Greek language into +pure and simple Persian. The kind host put up a tent for Martyn in the +garden, close to some beautiful vines, from which hung lovely bunches +of purple grapes. By the side of his tent ran a clear stream +of running water. All the evening nightingales sang sweetly and +mournfully. + +As he sat there at his work, men came hundreds of miles to talk with +this holy man, as they felt him to be. Moslems--they yet travelled +even from Baghdad and Bosra and Isfahan to hear this "infidel" speak +of Jesus Christ, and to argue as to which was the true religion. +Prince Abbas Mirza invited him to come to speak with him; and as +Martyn entered the Prince's courtyard a hundred fountains began to +send up jets of water in his honour. + +At last they came to him in such numbers that Martyn was obliged to +say to many of them that he could not see them. He hated sending them +away. What was it forced him to do so? + +_The Race against Time_ + +It was because he was running a race against time. He knew that he +could not live very long, because the disease that had smitten his +lungs was gaining ground every day. And the thing that he had come +to Persia for--the object that had made him face the long voyage, +the frightful heat and the freezing cold of the journey, the life +thousands of miles from his home in Cornwall--was that he might finish +such a translation of the New Testament into Persian that men should +love to read years and years after he had died. + +So each day Martyn finished another page or two of the book, written +in lovely Persian letters. He began the work within a week of reaching +Shiraz, and in seven months (February, 1812) it was finished. Three +more months were spent in writing out very beautiful copies of the +whole of the New Testament in this new translation, to be presented to +the Shah of Persia and to the heir to the throne, Prince Abbas Mirza. + +Then he started away on a journey right across Persia to find the Shah +and Prince so that he might give his precious books to them. On the +way he fell ill with great fever; he was so weak and giddy that he +could not stand. One night his head ached so that it almost drove him +mad; he shook all over with fever; then a great sweat broke out. He +was almost unconscious with weakness, but at midnight when the call +came to start he mounted his horse and, as he says, "set out, rather +dead than alive." So he pressed on in great weakness till he reached +Tabriz, and there met the British Ambassador. + +Martyn was rejoiced, and felt that all his pains were repaid when Sir +Gore Ouseley said that he himself would present the Sacred Book to +the Shah and the Prince. When the day came to give the book to Prince +Abbas, poor Henry Martyn was so weak that he could not rise from his +bed. Before the other copy could be presented to the Shah, Martyn had +died. This is how it came about. + + +_The Last Trail_ + +His great work was done. The New Testament was finished. He sent a +copy to the printers in India. He could now go home to England and +try to get well again. He started out on horseback with two Armenian +servants and a Turkish guide. He was making along the old track that +has been the road from Asia to Europe for thousands of years. His plan +was to travel across Persia, through Armenia and over the Black Sea to +Constantinople, and so back to England. + +For forty-five days he moved on, often going as much as ninety miles, +and generally as much as sixty in a day. He slept in filthy inns where +fleas and lice abounded and mosquitoes tormented him. Horses, cows, +buffaloes and sheep would pass through his sleeping-room, and the +stench of the stables nearly poisoned him. Yet he was so ill that +often he could hardly keep his seat on his horse. + +He travelled through deep ravines and over high mountain passes and +across vast plains. His head ached till he felt it would split; he +could not eat; fever came on. He shook with ague. Yet his remorseless +Turkish guide, Hassan, dragged him along, because he wanted to get the +journey over and go back home. + +At last one day Martyn got rest on damp ground in a hovel, his eyes +and forehead feeling as though a great fire burnt in them. "I was +almost frantic," he wrote. Martyn was, in fact, dying; yet Hassan +compelled him to ride a hundred and seventy miles of mountain track to +Tokat. Here, on October 6th, 1812, he wrote in his journal: + +"No horses to be had, I had an unexpected repose. I sat in the orchard +and thought with sweet comfort and peace of my God--in solitude my +Company, my Friend, my Comforter." + +It was the last word he was ever to write. + +Alone, without a human friend by him, he fell asleep. But the book +that he had written with his life-blood, the Persian New Testament, +was printed, and has told thousands of Persians in far places, where +no Christian man has penetrated, that story of the love of God that is +shown in Jesus Christ. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[Footnote 62: See Chapter XXIII.] + + + + +CHAPTER XXV + +THE MOSES OF THE ASSYRIANS + +_William Ambrose Shedd_ + +(1865-1918) + + +I + +A dark-haired American with black, penetrating eyes that looked you +steadily in the face, and sparkled with light when he laughed, sat on +a chair in a hall in 1918 in the ancient city of Urumia in the land of +Assyria where Persia and Turkey meet. + +His face was as brown with the sunshine of this eastern land as were +the wrinkled faces of the turbaned Assyrian village men who stood +before him. For he was born out here in Persia on Mount Seir.[63] +And he had lived here as a boy and a man, save for the time when his +splendid American father had sent him to Marietta, Ohio, for some of +his schooling, and to Princeton for his final training. His dark brown +moustache and short beard covered a firm mouth and a strong chin. +His vigorous expression and his strongly Roman nose added to the +commanding effect of his presence. + +A haunting terror had driven these ragged village people into the city +of Urumia, to ask help of this wonderful American leader whom they +almost worshipped because he was so strong and just and good. + +For the bloodthirsty Turks and the even more cruel and wilder Kurds +of the mountains were marching on the land. The Great War was raging +across the world and even the hidden peoples of this distant mountain +land were swept into its terrible flames. + +For Urumia city lies to the west of the southern end of the extremely +salt lake of the same name. It is about 150 miles west from the +Caspian Sea and the same distance north of the site of ancient +Nineveh. It stands on a small plain and in that tangle of lakes, +mountains and valley-plains where the ambitions of Russia, Persia and +Turkey have met, and where the Assyrians (Christians of one of the +most ancient churches in the world, which in the early centuries had +a chain of missions from Constantinople right across Asia to Peking), +the Kurds (wild, fierce Moslems), the Persians, the Turks and the +Russians struggled together. + +In front of Dr. William Ambrose Shedd there stood an old man from +the villages. His long grey hair and beard and his wrinkled face were +agitated as he told the American his story. The old man's dress was +covered with patches--an eyewitness counted thirty-seven patches--all +of different colours on one side of his cloak and loose baggy +trousers. + +"My field in my village I cannot plough," he said, "for we have no ox. +The Kurds have taken our possessions, you are our father. Grant us an +ox to plough and draw for us." + +Dr. Shedd saw that the old man spoke truth; he scribbled a few words +on a slip of paper and the old man went out satisfied. + +So for hour after hour, men and women from all the country round +came to this strange missionary who had been asked by the American +Government to administer relief, yes, and to be the Consul +representing America itself in that great territory. + +They came to him from the villages where, around the fire in the +Khans at night, men still tell stories of him as one of the great +hero-leaders of their race. These are the kind of stories that they +tell of the courage and the gentleness of this man who--while he was a +fine American scholar--yet knew the very heart of the Eastern peoples +in northwestern Persia as no American has ever done in all our +history. + +"One day," says one old village Assyrian greybeard, "Dr. Shedd was +sitting at meat in his house when his servant, Meshadi, ran into the +room crying, 'The Kurds have been among our people. They have taken +three girls, three Christian girls, and are carrying them off. They +have just passed the gate.' The Kurds were all bristling with daggers +and pistols. Dr. Shedd simply picked up the cane that he holds in his +hand when he walks. He hurried out of the house with Meshadi, ran up +the hill to the Kurd village that lies there, entered, said to the +fierce Kurds, 'Give back those girls to us.' And they, as they looked +into his face, could not resist him though they were armed and he was +not. So they gave the Assyrian girls back to him and he led them down +the hill to their homes." + +So he also stood single-handed between Turks and five hundred +Assyrians who had taken refuge in the missionary compound, and stopped +the Turks from massacring the Christians. + +But even as he worked in this way the tide of the great war flowed +towards Urumia. The people there were mostly Assyrians with some +Armenians; they were Christians. They looked southward across the +mountains to the British Army there in Mesopotamia for aid. + +But, as the Assyrians looked up from Urumia to the north they could +already see the first Turks coming down upon the city. Thousands upon +thousands of the Assyrians from the country villages crowded into the +city and into the American missionary compound, till actually even in +the mission school-rooms they were sleeping three deep--one lot on the +floor, another lot on the seats of the desks and a third on the top of +the desks themselves. + +"Hold on; resist; the help of the British will come," said Dr. Shedd +to the people. "Agha Petros with a thousand of our men has gone to +meet the British and he will come back with them and will throw back +the Turks." + +The Turks and the Kurds came on from the north; many of the Armenian +and Assyrian men were out across the plains to the east getting in the +harvest; and no sign of succour came from the south. + + +II + +Through the fierce hot days of July the people held on because Dr. +Shedd said that they must; but at last on the afternoon of July 30th +there came over all the people a strange irresistible panic. They +gathered all their goods together and piled them in wagons--food, +clothes, saucepans, jewelry, gold, silver, babies, old women, +mothers,--all were huddled and jumbled together. + +The wagons creaked, the oxen lurched down the roads to the south, the +little children cried with hunger and fright, the boys trudged +along rather excited at the adventure yet rather scared at the awful +hullabaloo and the strange feeling of horror of the cruel Kurdish +horsemen and of the crafty Turk. + +Dr. Shedd made one last vain effort to persuade the people to hold on +to their city; but it was impossible--they had gone, as it seemed, mad +with fright. + +He and his wife went to bed that night but not to sleep. At two +o'clock the telephone bell rang. + +"The Turks and Kurds are advancing; all the people are leaving," came +the message. + +"It is impossible to hold on any longer," said Dr. Shedd to his wife. +"I will go and tell all in the compound. You get things ready." + +Mrs. Shedd got up and began to collect what was needed: she packed +up food (bread, tea, sugar, nuts, raisins and so on), a frying pan, +a kettle, a saucepan, water jars, saddles, extra horse-shoes, ropes, +lanterns, a spade and bedding. By 7.30 the baggage wagon and two +Red Cross carts were ready. Dr. Shedd and Mrs. Shedd got up into the +wagon; the driver cried to his horses and they started. + +As they went out of the city on the south the Turks and Kurds came +raging in on the north. Within two hours the Turks and Kurds were +crashing into houses and burning them to the ground; but most of +the people had gone--for Dr. Shedd was practically the last to leave +Urumia. + +Ahead of them were the Armenians and Syrians in flight. They came to +a little bridge--a mass of sticks with mud thrown over them. Here, and +at every bridge, pandemonium reigned. This is how Mrs. Shedd describes +the scene: + +"The jam at every bridge was indescribable confusion. Every kind of +vehicle that you could imagine--ox carts, buffalo wagons, Red Cross +carts, troikas, foorgans like prairie schooners, hay-wagons, Russian +phaetons and many others invented and fitted up for the occasion. The +animals--donkeys, horses, buffaloes, oxen, cows with their calves, +mules and herds of thousands of sheep and goats." + +All through the day they moved on, at the end of the procession--Dr. +Shedd, planning out how he could best get his people safely away from +the Turks who--he knew--would soon come pursuing them down the plain +to the mountains. Night fell and they were in a long line of wagons +close to a narrow bridge built by the Russians across the Baranduz +river. They had come some eighteen miles from Urumia. + +So they lay down in the wagons to try to sleep. But they could not and +at two o'clock in the night they moved on, crossed the river and drove +on for hour after hour toward the mountains that rose in a wall before +them. + +The poor horses were not strong so the wagon had to be lightened. +Assyrian boys took loads on their heads and trudged up the rocky +mountain road while the wagon jolted and groaned as it bumped its way +along. The trail of the mountain pass was littered with samovars (tea +urns), copper kettles, carpets, bedding; and here and there the body +of someone who had died on the way. At the very top of the pass lay a +baby thrown aside there and just drawing its last breath. + +So for two days they jolted on hardly getting an hour's sleep. At last +at midday on the third day they left Hadarabad at the south end of +Lake Urumia. Two hours later the sound of booming guns was heard. A +horseman galloped up. + +"The Turks are in Hadarabad," he said. "They are attacking the rear of +the procession." + +"It seemed," said Mrs. Shedd, "as if at any moment we should hear the +screams of those behind, as the enemy fell upon them." + +The wagons hurried on to the next town called Memetyar and there Dr. +Shedd waited, lightening his own wagons by throwing away everything +that they could spare--oil, potatoes, charcoal, every box except his +Bible and a small volume of Browning's Poems. + +Then they started again, along a road that was littered with the +discarded goods of the people. Then they saw on the road-side a little +baby girl that had been left by her parents. She was not a year old +and sat there all alone in a desolate spot. Left to die. Dr. Shedd +looked at his wife and she at him. + +He pulled up the horse and jumped down, picked up the baby and put her +in the wagon. They went along till they came to a large village. Here +they found a Kurdish mother. + +"Take care of this little girl till we come back," said Dr. Shedd, +"and here is some money for looking after her. We will give you more +when we come back if she is well looked after." + + +III + +Suddenly cannon were fired from the mountains and the people in +panic threw away their goods and hurried in a frenzy of fear down the +mountain passes. They passed on to the plain, and then as they were +in a village guns began to be fired. Three hundred Turks and Persians +were attacking under Majdi--Sultana of Urumia. Dr. Shedd, riding his +horse, gathered together some Armenian and Assyrian men with guns and +stayed with them to help them hold back the enemy, while the women +drove on. He was a good target sitting up there on his horse; but +without thinking of his own danger he kept his men at it. For he felt +like a shepherd with a great flock of fleeing sheep whom it was his +duty to protect. + +Panic seized the people. Strong men left their old mothers to die. +Mothers dropped their babies and ran. + +"One of my school-girls," Mrs. Shedd says, "afterward told me how she +had left her baby on the bank and waded with an older child through +the river when the enemy were coming after them. She couldn't carry +both. The memory of her deserted baby is always with her." + +The line of the refugees stretched for miles along the road. The enemy +fired from behind boulders on the mountain sides. The Armenians and +Syrians fired back from the road or ran up the mountains to chase +them. It was hopeless to think of driving the enemy off but Dr. +Shedd's object was to hold them off till help came. So he went up and +down on his horse encouraging the men; while the bullets whizzed over +the wagons. + +"I feared," said Mrs. Shedd, "that the enemy might get the better of +us and we should have to leave the carts and run for our lives. While +they were plundering the wagons and the loads we would get away. I +looked about me to see what we might carry. There was little May, +six years old (the daughter of one of their Syrian teachers) who had +unconcernedly curled herself up on the seat for a nap. I wrapped a +little bread in a cloth, put my glasses in my pocket, and took the bag +of money so that I should be ready on a moment's notice for Dr. Shedd +if they should swoop down upon us." + +All day long the firing went on from the mountain side as the tired +horses pulled along the rough trail. The sun began to sink toward the +horizon. What would happen in the darkness? + +Then they saw ahead of them coming from the south a group of men in +khaki. They were nine British Tommies with three Lewis guns under +Captain Savage. They had come ahead from the main body that had moved +up from Baghdad in order to defend the rear of the great procession. +The little company of soldiers passed on and the procession moved +forward. That tiny company of nine British Tommies ten miles farther +on was attacked by hundreds of Turks. All day they held the road, like +Horatius on the bridge, till at night the Cavalry came up and drove +off the enemy, and at last the Shedds reached the British camp. + +"Why are you right at the tail end of the retreat?" asked one of the +Syrian young men who had hurried forward into safety. + +"I would much rather be there," said Dr. Shedd with some scorn in +his voice, "than like you, leave the unarmed, the sick, the weak, the +women and the children to the mercy of the enemy." + +He was rejoiced that the British had come. + +"There was," said Mrs. Shedd, "a ring in his voice, a light in his +eyes, a buoyancy in his step that I had not seen for months." + +He had shepherded his thousands and thousands of boys and girls, and +men and women through the mountains into the protection of the British +squadron of troops. + + +IV + +Later that day Dr. Shedd began to feel the frightful heat of the +August day so exhausting that he had to lie down in the cart, which +had a canvas cover open at both ends and was therefore much cooler +than a tent. He got more and more feverish. So Mrs. Shedd got the +Assyrian boys to take out the baggage and she made up a bed for him on +the floor of the cart. + +The English doctor was out with the cavalry who were holding back and +dispersing the Turkish force. + +Then a British officer came and said: "We are moving the camp forward +under the protection of the mountains." + +It was late afternoon. The cart moved forward into the gathering +darkness. Mrs. Shedd crouched beside her husband on the floor of the +cart attending to him, expecting the outriders to tell her when they +came to the British Camp. + +For hours the cart rolled and jolted over the rough mountain roads. At +last it stopped, it was so dark they could not see the road. They were +in a gully and could not go forward. + +"Where is the British camp?" asked Mrs. Shedd. + +"We passed it miles back on the road," was the reply. + +It was a terrible blow: the doctor, the medicines, the comfort, the +nursing that would have helped Dr. Shedd were all miles away and he +was so ill that it was impossible to drive him back over that rough +mountain track in the inky darkness of the night. + +There was nothing to do but just stay where they were, send a +messenger to the camp for the doctor, and wait for the morning. + +"Only a few drops of oil were left in the lantern," Mrs. Shedd tells +us, "but I lighted it and looked at Mr. Shedd. I could see that he was +very sick indeed and asked two of the men to go back for the doctor. +It was midnight before the doctor reached us. + +"The men," Mrs. Shedd continues, "set fire to a deserted cart left +by the refugees and this furnished fire and light all night. They +arranged for guards in turn and lay down to rest on the roadside. +Hour after hour I crouched in the cart beside my husband massaging his +limbs when cramps attacked him, giving him water frequently, for while +he was very cold to the touch, he seemed feverish. We heated the hot +water bottle for his feet, and made coffee for him at the blaze; we +had no other nourishment. He got weaker and weaker, and a terrible +fear tugged at my heart. + +"Fifty thousand hunted, terror-stricken refugees had passed on; the +desolate, rocky mountains loomed above us, darkness was all about us +and heaven seemed too far away for prayer to reach. A deserted baby +wailed all night not far away. When the doctor came he gave two +hypodermic injections and returned to the camp saying we should wait +there for him to catch up to us in the morning. After the injections +Mr. Shedd rested better but he did not again regain consciousness. + +"When the light began to reveal things, I could see the awful change +in his face, but I could not believe that he was leaving me. Shortly +after light the men told me that we could not wait as they heard +fighting behind and it was evident the English were attacked, so in +his dying hour we had to take him over the rough, stony road. After +an hour or two Capt. Reed and the doctor caught up to us. We drew the +cart to the side of the road where soon he drew a few short, sharp +breaths--and I was alone." + +So the British officers, with a little hoe, on the mountain side dug +the grave of this brave American shepherd, who had given his life +in defending the Assyrian flock from the Turkish wolf. They made the +grave just above the road beside a rock; and on it they sprinkled dead +grass so that it might not be seen and polluted by the enemy. + + * * * * * + +The people Dr. Shedd loved were safe. The enemy, whose bullets he had +braved for day after day, was defeated by the British soldiers. But +the great American leader, whose tired body had not slept while the +Assyrians and Armenians were being hunted through the mountains, lies +there dreamless on the mountain side. + +These are words that broke from the lips of Assyrian sheiks when they +heard of his death: + +"He bore the burdens of the whole nation upon his shoulders to the +last breath of his life. + +"As long as we obeyed his advice and followed his lead we were safe +and prosperous, but when we ceased to do that destruction came upon +us. He was, and ever will be, the Moses of the Assyrian people." + +He lies there where his heart always was--in that land in which the +Turk, the Assyrian, the Armenian, the Persian, the Russian and the +Arab meet; he is there waiting for the others who will go out and +take up the work that he has left, the work of carrying to all those +eastern peoples the love of the Christ whom Dr. Shedd died in serving. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[Footnote 63: Born January 25th, 1865. Graduated Marietta College, +Ohio, 1887, and Princeton Theological Seminary, 1892.] + + + + +CHAPTER XXVI + +AN AMERICAN NURSE IN THE GREAT WAR + +_E.D. Cushman_ + +(Time 1914-1920) + + +_The Turk in Bed_ + +The cold, clear sunlight of a winter morning on the high plateau of +Asia Minor shone into the clean, white ward of a hospital in Konia +(the greatest city in the heart of that land). The hospital in which +the events that I am going to tell in this story happened is supported +by Christian folk in America, and was established by two American +medical missionaries, Dr. William S. Dodd, and Dr. Wilfred Post, with +Miss Cushman, the head nurse, sharing the general superintendence: +other members of the staff are Haralambos, their Armenian dispenser +and druggist, and Kleoniki, a Greek nurse trained by Miss Cushman. The +author spent the early spring of 1914 at the hospital in Konia, when +all the people named above were at work there. + +The tinkle of camel-bells as a caravan of laden beasts swung by, the +quick pad-pad of donkeys' hoofs, the howl of a Turkish dog, the cry +of a child--these and other sounds of the city came through the open +window of the ward. + +On a bed in the corner of the ward lay a bearded man--a Turk--who +lived in this ancient city of Konia (the Iconium of St. Paul's day). +His brown face and grizzled beard were oddly framed in the white of +the spotless pillow and sheets. + +His face turned to the door as it opened and the matron entered. The +eyes of the Turk as he lay there followed her as she walked toward +one of her deft, gentle-handed assistant nurses who, in their neat +uniforms with their olive-brown faces framed in dark hair, went +from bed to bed tending the patients; giving medicine to a boy +here, shaking up a pillow for a sick man there, taking a patient's +temperature yonder. Those skilled nurses were Armenian girls. The +Armenians are a Christian nation, who have been ruled by the Turks for +centuries and often have been massacred by them; yet these Armenian +girls were nursing the Turks in the hospital. But the matron of the +hospital was not a Turk, nor an Armenian. She had come four thousand +miles across the sea to heal the Turks and the Armenians in this land. +She was an American. + +The Turk in bed turned his eyes from the nurses to a picture on the +wall. A frown came on his face. He began to mutter angry words into +his beard. + +As a Turk he had always been taught, even as a little boy, that the +great Prophet Mohammed had told them they must have no pictures of +prophets, and he knew from what he had heard that the picture on the +wall showed the face of a prophet. It was a picture of a man with a +kind, strong face, dressed in garments of the lands of the East, and +wearing a short beard. He was stooping down healing a little child. It +was our Lord Jesus Christ the Great Physician. + +As Miss Cushman--for that was the name of the matron--moved toward his +bed, the Turk burst into angry speech. + +"Have that picture taken down," he said roughly, pointing to it. She +turned to look at the picture and then back at him, and said words +like these: "No, that is the picture of Jesus, the great Doctor who +lived long ago and taught the people that God is Love. It is because +He taught that, and has called me to follow in His steps, that I am +here to help to heal you." + +But the Turk, who was not used to having women disobey his commands, +again ordered angrily that the picture should be taken down. But the +American missionary-nurse said gently, but firmly: "No, the picture +must stay there to remind us of Jesus. If you cannot endure to see +the picture there, then if you wish you may leave the hospital, of +course." + +And so she passed on. The Turk lay in his bed and thought it over. He +wished to get well. If the doctors in this hospital--Dr. Dodd and +Dr. Post--did not attend him, and if the nurses did not give him his +medicine, he would not. He therefore decided to make no more fuss +about the picture. So he lay looking at it, and was rather surprised +to find in a few days that he liked to see it there, and that he +wanted to hear more and more about the great Prophet-Doctor, Jesus. + +Then he had another tussle of wills with Miss Cushman, the white +nurse from across the seas. It came about in this way. Women who are +Mohammedans keep their faces veiled, but the Armenian Christian nurses +had their faces uncovered. + +"Surely they are shameless women," he thought in his heart. "And they +are Armenians too--Christian infidels!" So he began to treat them +rudely. But the white nurse would not stand that. + +Miss Cushman went and stood by his bed and said: "I want you to +remember that these nurses of mine are here to help you to get well. +They are to you even as daughters tending their father; and you must +behave to them as a good father to good daughters." + +So the Turk lay in bed and thought about that also. It took him a +long time to take it in, for he had always been taught to hate the +Armenians and to think low thoughts about their womenfolk. But in the +end he learnt that lesson also. + +At last the Turk got well, left his bed, and went away. He was so +thankful that he was better that he was ready to do just anything in +the world that Miss Cushman wanted him to do. The days passed on in +the hospital, and always the white nurse from across the seas and the +Armenian nurses tended the Turkish and other patients, and healed them +through the heats of that summer. + + +_War and Massacre_ + +As summer came near to its end there broke on the world the dreadful +day when all Europe went to war. Miss Cushman's colleagues, the +American doctors at the hospital, left Konia for service in the +war. Soon Turkey entered the war. The fury of the Turks against the +Armenians burst out into a flame. You might see in Konia two or three +Turks sitting in the shadow of a little saddler's shop by the street +smoking their hubble-bubble water-pipes, and saying words like these: + +"The Armenians are plotting to help the enemies of Turkey. We shall +have to kill them all." + +"Yes, wipe them out--the accursed infidels!" + +The Turks hate the Armenians because their religion, Islam, teaches +them to hate the "infidel" Christians; they are of a foreign race and +foreign religion in countries ruled by Turks, though the Armenians +were there first, and the Armenians are cleverer business men than the +Turks, who hate to see their subjects richer than themselves, and hope +by massacre to seize Armenian wealth. + +Yet all the time, as the wounded Turks were sent from the Gallipoli +front back to Konia, the Armenian nurses in the hospital there were +healing them. But the Turkish Government gave its orders. Vile bands +of Turkish soldiers rushed down on the different cities and villages +of the Armenians.[64] One sunny morning a troop of Turkish soldiers +came dashing into a quiet little Armenian town among the hills. An +order was given. The Turks smashed in the doors of the houses. A +father stood up before his family; a bayonet was driven through him +and soldiers dashed over his dead body; they looted the house; they +smashed up his home; others seized the mother and the daughters--the +mother had a baby in her arms; the baby was flung on the ground and +then picked up dead on the point of a bayonet; and, though the mother +and daughters were not bayoneted then, it would have been better to +die at once than to suffer the unspeakable horrors that came to them. + +And that happened in hundreds of villages and cities to hundred of +thousands of Armenians, while hundreds of thousands more scattered +down the mountain passes in flight towards Konia. + + +_The Orphan Boys and Girls_ + +As Miss Cushman and her Armenian nurses looked out through the windows +of the hospital, their hearts were sad as they saw some of these +Armenian refugees trailing along the road like walking skeletons. What +was to happen to them? It was very dangerous for anyone to show that +they were friends with the Armenians, but the white matron was as +brave as she was kind; so she went out to do what she could to help +them. + +One day she saw a little boy so thin that the bones seemed almost to +be coming through his skin. He was very dirty; his hair was all matted +together; and there were bugs and fleas in his clothes and in his +hair. The hospital was so full that not another could be taken in. But +the boy would certainly die if he were not looked after properly. His +father and his mother had both been slain by the Turks; he did not +know where his brothers were. He was an orphan alone in all the world. + +Miss Cushman knew Armenian people in Konia, and she went to one of +these homes and told them about the poor boy and arranged to pay them +some money for the cost of his food. So she made a new home for him. +The next day she found another boy, and then a girl, and so she went +on and on, discovering little orphan Armenian boys and girls who had +nobody to care for them, and finding them homes--until she had over +six hundred orphans being cared for. It is certain that nearly all of +them would have died if she had not looked after them. + +So Miss Cushman gathered the six hundred Armenian children together +into an orphanage, that was half for the boys and half for the girls. +She was a hundred times better than the "Woman who Lived in a Shoe," +because, though she had so many children, she _did_ know what to +do. She taught them to make nearly everything for themselves. In the +mornings you would see half the boys figuring away at their sums or +learning to write and read, while the other boys were hammering and +sawing and planing at the carpenter's bench; cutting leather and +sewing it to make shoes for the other boys and girls; cutting petrol +tins up into sheets to solder into kettles and saucepans; and cutting +and stitching cloth to make clothes. A young American Red Cross +officer who went to see them wrote home, "The kids look happy and +healthy and as clean as a whistle." + + +_The People on the Plain_ + +As Miss Cushman looked out again from the hospital window she saw men +coming from the country into the city jogging along on little donkeys. + +"In the villages all across the plain," they said to her, "are +Armenian boys and girls, and men and women. They are starving. Many +are without homes, wandering about in rags till they simply lie down +on the ground, worn out, and die." + +Miss Cushman sent word to friends far away in America, and they sent +food from America to Turkey in ships, and a million dollars of money +to help the starving children. So Miss Cushman got together her boys +and girls and some other helpers, and soon they were very busy all day +and every day wrapping food and clothes into parcels. + +Next a caravan of snorting camels came swinging in to the courtyard +and, grumbling and rumbling, knelt down, to be loaded up. The parcels +were done up in big bales and strapped on to the camels' backs. Then +at a word from the driver the camels rose from their knees and went +lurching out from Konia into the country, over the rough, rolling +tracks, to carry to the people the food and clothes that would keep +them alive. + +The wonderful thing is that these camels were led by a Turk belonging +to the people who hate the Armenians, yet he was carrying food and +clothes to them! Why did this Turk in Konia go on countless journeys, +travelling over thousands of miles with tens of thousands of parcels +containing wheat for bread and new shirts and skirts and other clothes +for the Armenians whom he had always hated, and never lose a single +parcel? + +Why did he do it? + +This is the reason. Before the war when he was ill in the hospital +Miss Cushman had nursed him with the help of her Armenian girls, and +had made him better; he was so thankful that he would just run to do +anything that she wished him to do. + + +_To Stay or not to Stay?_ + +But at last Miss Cushman--worn out with all this work--fell ill with +a terrible fever. For some time it was not certain that she would not +die of it; for a whole month she lay sick in great weakness. President +Wilson had at this time broken off relations between America and +Turkey. The Turk now thought of the American as an enemy; and Miss +Cushman was an American. She was in peril. What was she to do? + +"It is not safe to stay," said her friends. "You will be practically a +prisoner of war. You will be at the mercy of the Turks. You know what +the Turk is--as treacherous as he is cruel. They can, if they wish, +rob you or deport you anywhere they like. Go now while the path is +open--before it is too late. You are in the very middle of Turkey, +hundreds of miles from any help. The dangers are terrible." + +As soon as she was well enough Miss Cushman went to the Turkish +Governor of Konia, a bitter Mohammedan who had organised the massacre +of forty thousand Armenians, to say that she had been asked to go back +to America. + +"What shall you do if I stay?" she asked. + +"I beg you to stay," said the Governor. "You shall be protected. You +need have no fear." + +"Your words are beautiful," she replied. "But if American and Turkey +go to war you will deport me." + +If she stayed she knew the risks under his rule. She was still weak +from her illness. There was no colleague by her side to help her. +There seemed to be every reason why she should sail away back to +America. But as she sat thinking it over she saw before her the +hospital full of wounded soldiers, the six hundred orphans who looked +to her for help, the plain of a hundred villages to which she was +sending food. No one could take her place. + +Yet she was weak and tired after her illness and, in America, rest and +home, friends and safety called to her. + +"It was," she wrote later to her friends, "a heavy problem to know +what to do with the orphans and other helpless people who depended on +me for life." + +What would you have done? What do you think she did? For what reason +should she face these perils? + +Not in the heat of battle, but in cool quiet thought, all alone among +enemies, she saw her path and took it. She did not count her life her +own. She was ready to give her life for her friends of all nations. +She decided to stay in the heart of the enemies' country and serve her +God and the children. Many a man has had the cross of Honour for an +act that called for less calm courage. That deed showed her to be one +of the great undecorated heroes and heroines of the lonely path. + +So she stayed on. + +From all over the Turkish Empire prisoners were sent to Konia. There +was great confusion in dealing with them, so the people of Konia +asked Miss Cushman to look after them; they even wrote to the Turkish +Government at Constantinople to tell them to write to her to invite +her to do this work. There was a regular hue and cry that she should +be appointed, because everyone knew her strong will, her power of +organising, her just treatment, her good judgment, and her loving +heart. So at last she accepted the invitation. Prisoners of eleven +different nationalities she helped--including British, French, +Italian, Russian, Indians and Arabs. She arranged for the nursing of +the sick, the feeding of the hungry, the freeing of some from prison. + +She went on right through the war to the end and beyond the end, +caring for her orphans, looking after the sick in hospital, sending +food and clothes to all parts of the country, helping the prisoners. +Without caring whether they were British or Turkish, Armenian or +Indian, she gave her help to those who needed it. And because of her +splendid courage thousands of boys and girls and men and women are +alive and well, who--without her--would have starved and frozen to +death. + +To-day, in and around Konia (an Army officer who has been there tells +us), the people do not say, "If Allah wills," but "If Miss Cushman +wills!" It is that officer's way of letting us see how, through her +brave daring, her love, and her hard work, that served everybody, +British, Armenian, Turk, Indian, and Arab, she has become the +uncrowned Queen of Konia, whose bidding all the people do because she +only cares to serve them, not counting her own life dear to her. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[Footnote 64: In reading this part of the story to younger children +discretion should be exercised. Some of the details on this page are +horrible; but it is right that older children should realize the evil +and how Miss Cushman's courage faced it.] + + + + +CHAPTER XXVII + +ON THE DESERT CAMEL TRAIL + +_Archibald Forder_ + +(Time of Incident 1900-1901) + + +_The Boy Who Listened_ + +An eight-year-old schoolboy sat one evening in a crowded meeting in +Salisbury, his eyes wide open with wonder as he heard a bronzed and +bearded man on the platform telling of his adventures in Africa. The +man was Robert Moffat. + +It was a hot summer night in August (1874). The walls of the building +where the meeting was held seemed to have disappeared and the boy +Archibald Forder could in imagination see "the plain of a thousand +villages," that Livingstone had seen when this same Robert Moffat had +called him to Africa many years before. As the boy Archibald heard +Moffat he too wished to go out into the foreign field. Many things +happened as he grew up; but he never forgot that evening. + +At the age of thirteen he left home and was apprenticed to the grocery +and baking business. In 1888 he married. At this time he read in a +magazine about missionary work in Kerak beyond the River Jordan--in +Moab among the Arabs--where a young married man ready to rough it was +needed. He sailed with his wife for Kerak on September 3, 1891, and +left Jerusalem by camel on September 30, on the four days' journey +across Jordan to Kerak. Three times they were robbed by brigands on +this journey. Mr. Forder worked there till 1896. He then left +and travelled through America to secure support for an attempt to +penetrate Central Arabia with the first effort to carry the Gospel of +Jesus Christ there. + +The story that follows tells how Forder made his pioneer journey into +the Arabian desert. + + +_The Adventure into the Desert_ + +Two pack-horses were stamping their hoofs impatiently outside a house +in Jerusalem in the early morning a week or two before Christmas.[65] +Inside the house a man was saying good-bye to his wife and his three +children. He was dressed as an Arab, with a long scarf wrapped about +his head and on the top the black rope of twisted goats' hair that the +Arab puts on when he becomes a man. + +"Will you be long, Father?" asked his little four-year-old boy. + +The father could not answer, for he was going out from Jerusalem for +hundreds of miles into the sun and the thirst of the desert, to the +land of the fiercest Arabs--Moslems whose religion tells them that +they must kill the infidel Christians. It was difficult to tear +himself from his wife and his children and go out to face death in +the desert. But he had come out here to carry to the Arab the story of +Jesus Christ, who Himself had died on a Cross outside this very city. + +So he kissed his little boy "good-bye," wrenched himself away, climbed +on top of the load on one of the pack horses and rode out through the +gate into the unknown. He thought as his horses picked their way down +the road from Jerusalem toward Jericho of how Jesus Christ had been +put to death in this very land. Over his left shoulder he saw the +slopes of the Mount of Olives; down below across the ravine on his +right was the Garden of Gethsemane. In a short time he was passing +through Bethany where Mary and Martha lived. Down the steep winding +road amongst the rocks he went, and took a cup of cold water at the +inn of the Good Samaritan. + +Then with the Wilderness of Desolation stretching its tawny tumbled +desert hills away to the left, he moved onward, down and down until +the road came out a thousand feet below sea-level among the huts and +sheepfolds of Jericho, where he slept that night. + +With his face toward the dawn that came up over the hills of Moab in +the distance, he was off again over the plain with the Dead Sea on +his right, across the swiftly flowing Jordan, and climbing the ravines +that lead into the mountains of Gilead. + +That night he stayed with a Circassian family in a little house of +only one room into which were crowded his two horses, a mule, two +donkeys, a yoke of oxen, some sheep and goats, a crowd of cocks and +hens, four small dirty children and their father and mother; and a +great multitude of fleas. + +The mother fried him a supper of eggs with bread, and after it he +showed them something that they had never seen before. He took out of +his pack a copy of the New Testament translated into Arabic.[66] He +read bits out of it and talked to them about the Love of God. + +Early next morning, his saddle-bag stuffed with a batch of loaves +which the woman had baked first thing in the morning specially for +him, he set out again. + +How could a whole batch of loaves be stuffed in one saddle-bag? The +loaves are flat and circular like a pancake. The dough is spread on a +kind of cushion, the woman takes up the cushion with the dough on it, +pushes it through the opening and slaps the dough on the inner wall +of a big mud oven (out of doors) that has been heated with a fire +of twigs, and in a minute or two pushes the cushion in again and the +cooked bread falls on to it. + +So Forder climbed up the mountain track till he came out on the high +plain. He saw the desert in front of him--like a vast rolling ocean of +glowing gold it stretched away and away for close on a thousand miles +eastward to the Persian Gulf. Forder knew that only here and there in +all those blazing, sandy wastes were oases where men could build their +houses round some well or little stream that soon lost itself in the +sand. All the rest was desert across which man and beast must hurry +or die of thirst. He must follow the camel-tracks from oasis to oasis, +where they could find a well of water, therefore drink for man and +camel, and date-palms. + +So turning north he pressed on[67] till on the sixth day out from +Jerusalem the clouds came up with the dawn, and hail and rain, carried +by a biting east wind, beat down upon him. Lifting his eyes to the +horizon he saw ahead the sturdy castle and thick walls of the ancient +city of Bosra. Stumbling through the storm, along the narrow winding +streets, he met, to his disgust, a man whose dress showed that he was +a Turkish Government official. He knew that the Turkish Government +would be against a Christian and a foreigner going into their land. + +"Who are you?" asked the official, stopping him. "Where are you from? +Where are you going?" + +Forder told him, and the man said. "Come with me. I will find you and +your horses shelter at the Governor's house." Forder followed him into +a large room in the middle of which on the floor a fire was burning. + +"I must examine all your cases," said the official. "Get up. Open your +boxes." + +"Never," said Forder. "This is not a custom-house." + +"Your boxes are full of powder for arming the Arabs against the +Turkish Government," replied the official. + +"I will not open them," said Forder, "unless you bring me written +orders from the Turkish Governor in Damascus and from the British +Consul." + +Off went the official to consult the headman (the equivalent of the +Mayor) of the city. The headman came and asked many questions. At last +he said: + +"Well, my orders are to turn back all Europeans and not to let any +stay in these parts. However, as you seem to be almost an Arab, may +God go with you and give you peace." + +So Forder and the headman of the ancient city of Bosra got talking +together. Forder opened his satchel and drew out an Arabic New +Testament, and together they read parts of the story of the life of +Jesus Christ and talked about Him till ten o'clock at night. As the +headman rose to go to his own rooms Forder offered to him, and he +gladly took, the copy of the New Testament in Arabic to read for +himself. + + +_Saved by the Mist_ + +Next morning early, Forder had his horses loaded and started off with +his face to the dawn. The track now led toward the great Castle of +Sulkhund, which he saw looming up on the horizon twenty-five miles +away, against the dull sky. But mist came down; wind, rain, and hail +buffeted him; the horses, to escape the hail in their faces, turned +aside, and the trail was lost. Mist hid everything. Forder's compass +showed that he was going south; so he turned east again; but he could +not strike the narrow, broken, stony trail. + +Suddenly smoke could be seen, and then a hamlet of thirty houses +loomed up. Forder opened a door and a voice came calling, "Welcome!" +He went in and saw some Arabs crouching there out of the rain. A fire +of dried manure was made; the smoke made Forder's eyes smart and the +tears run down his cheeks. He changed into another man's clothes, and +hung his own up in the smoke to dry. + +"Where are we?" he asked. The men told him that he was about two and +a half hours' ride from the castle and two hours off the track that he +had left in the mist. The men came in from the other little houses to +see the stranger and sip coffee. Forder again brought out an Arabic +New Testament and found to his surprise that some of the men could +read quite well and were very keen on his books. So they bought some +of the Bibles from him. They had no money but paid him in dried figs, +flour and eggs. At last they left him to curl up on the hard floor; +and in spite of the cold and draughts and the many fleas he soon fell +asleep. + +As dawn came up he rose and started off: there (as he climbed out of +the hollow in which the hamlet lay) he could see the Castle Sulkhund. +He knew that the Turks did not want any foreigner to enter that land +of the Arabs, and that if he were seen, he would certainly be ordered +back. Yet he could not hide, for the path ran close under the castle, +and on the wall strode the sentry. The plain was open; there was no +way by which he could creep past. + +At last he came to the hill on which the castle stood. At that very +moment a dense mist came down; he walked along, lost the track, and +found it again. Then there came a challenge from the sentry. He could +not see the sentry or the sentry him. So he called back in Arabic that +he was a friend, and so passed on in the mist. At last he was out on +the open ground beyond both the castle and the little town by it. +Five minutes later the mist blew away; the sun shone; the castle was +passed, and the open plains lay before him. The mist had saved him. + +In an hour he came to a large town named Orman on the edge of the +desert sandy plains; and here he stayed for some weeks. His horses +were sent back to Jerusalem. Instead of towns and villages of huts, +he would now find only the tents of wandering Arabs who had to keep +moving to find bits of sparse growth for their few sheep and camels. +While he was at Orman he managed to make friends with many of the +Arabs and with their Chief. He asked the Chief to help him on toward +Kaf--an oasis town across the desert. + +"Don't go," the Chief and his people said, "the Arabs there are bad: +when we go we never let our rifles out of our hands." + +So the old Chief told him of the dangers of the desert; death from +thirst or from the fiery Arabs of Kaf. + +"I am trusting God to protect and keep me," said Forder. "I believe He +will do so." + +So Forder handed the Chief most of his money to take care of, and +sewed up the rest into the waistband of his trousers. (It is as safe +as a bank to hand your money to an Arab chief who has entertained you +in his tent. If you have "eaten his salt" he will not betray or rob +you. Absolute loyalty to your guest is the unwritten law that no true +Arab ever breaks.) + + +_The Caravan of Two Thousand Camels_ + +At last the old Chief very unwillingly called a man, told him to get +a camel, load up Forder's things on it, and pass him on to the first +Arab tent that he found. Two days passed before they found a group +of Bedouin tents. He was allowed to sleep in a tent: but early in the +morning he woke with a jump. The whole of the tent had fallen right +on him; he crawled out. He saw the Arab women standing round; they had +pulled the tent down. + +"Why do you do this so early?" he asked. + +"The men," they replied, "have ordered us to move to another place; +they fear to give shelter to a Christian--one that is unclean and +would cause trouble to come on us." + +So the tribesmen with their women and flocks made off, leaving Forder, +his guide, and the camel alone in the desert. That afternoon he found +a tent and heard that a great caravan was expected to pass that night +on the way to Kaf to get salt. Night fell; it was a full moon. Forder +sat with the others in the tent doorway round the fire. A man ran up +to them. + +"I hear the bells of the camels," he said. Quickly Forder's goods +were loaded on a camel. He jumped on top. He was led off into the open +plain. Away across the desert clear in the moonlight came the dark +mass of the caravan with the tinkle of innumerable bells. + +Arabs galloped ahead of the caravan. They drew up their horses +shouting, "Who are you? What do you want?" Then came fifty horsemen +with long spears in their hands, rifles slung from their shoulders, +swords hanging from their belts, and revolvers stuck in their robes. +They were guarding the first section made up of four hundred camels. +There were four sections, each guarded by fifty warriors. + +As they passed, the man with Forder shouted out the names of friends +of his who--he thought--would be in the caravan. Sixteen hundred +camels passed in the moonlight, but still no answer came. Then the +last section began to pass. The cry went up again of the names of the +men. At last an answering shout was heard. The men they sought were +found. Forder's guide explained who he was and that he wanted to go to +Kaf. His baggage was swiftly shifted onto another camel, and in a +few minutes he had mounted, and his camel was swinging along with two +thousand others into the east. + +For hour after hour the tireless camels swung on and on, tawny beasts +on a tawny desert, under a silver moon that swam in a deep indigo sky +in which a million stars sparkled. The moon slowly sank behind them; +ahead the first flush of pink lighted the sky; but still they pushed +on. At last at half-past six in the morning they stopped. Forder flung +himself on the sand wrapped in his _abba_ (his Arab cloak) and in a +few seconds was asleep. In fifteen minutes, however, they awakened +him. Already most of the camels had moved on. From dawn till noon, +from noon under the blazing sun till half-past five in the afternoon, +the camels moved on and on, "unhasting, unresting." As the camels were +kneeling to be unloaded, a shout went up. Forder looking up saw ten +robbers on horseback on a mound. Like the wind the caravan warriors +galloped after them firing rapidly, and at last captured them and +dragged them back to the camp. + +"Start again," the command went round, and in fifteen minutes the two +thousand camels swung grumbling and groaning out on the endless trail +of the desert. The captured Arabs were marched in the centre. All +through the night the caravan went on from moonrise to moonset, and +through the morning from dawn till ten o'clock--for they dared not +rest while the tribe from whom they had captured the prisoners could +get near them. Then they released the captives and sent them back, +for on the horizon they saw the green palms of Kaf, the city that they +sought. + +The camels had only rested for thirty minutes in forty hours.[68] With +grunts of pleasure they dropped on their knees and were freed from +their loads, and began hungrily to eat their food. + +Forder leapt down and was so glad to be in Kaf that he ran into some +palm gardens close by and sang "Praise God from Whom all blessings +flow," jumped for joy, and then washed all the sweat and sand from +himself in a hot spring of sulphur water. + +Lying down on the floor of a little house to which he was shown, he +slept, with his head on his saddlebags, all day till nearly sunset. + +At sunset a gun was fired. The caravan was starting on its return +journey. Forder's companions on the caravan came to him. + +"Come back with us," they said. "Why will you stay with these cursed +people of Kaf? They will surely kill you because you are a Christian." + +It was hard to stay. But no Christian white man had ever been in that +land before carrying the Good News of Jesus, and Forder had come out +to risk his life for that very purpose. So he stayed. + +What made Forder put his life in peril and stand the heat, vermin, and +hate? Why try to make friends with these wild bandits? Why care about +them at all? He was a baker in his own country in England and might +have gone on with this work. It was the love of Christ that gave him +the love of all men, and, in obeying His command to "Go into all the +world," he found adventure, made friends, and left with them the Good +News in the New Testament. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[Footnote 65: Thursday morning, December 13, 1900.] + +[Footnote 66: Recall Henry Martyn and Sabat at work on this.] + +[Footnote 67: Passing Es-Salt (Ramoth Gilead), Gerash and Edrei in +Bashan.] + +[Footnote 68: It took the caravan six days to go back.] + + + + +CHAPTER XXVIII + +THE FRIEND OF THE ARAB + +_Archibald Forder_ + +(Date of Incident, 1901) + + +_The Lone Trail of Friendship_ + +So the two thousand camels swung out on the homeward trail. Forder now +was alone in Kaf. + +"Never," he says, "shall I forget the feeling of loneliness that came +over me as I made my way back to my room. The thought that I was +the only Christian in the whole district was one that I cannot well +describe." + +As Forder passed a group of Arabs he heard them muttering to one +another, "_Nisraney_[69]--one of the cursed ones--the enemy of Allah!" +He remembered that he had been warned that the Arabs of Kaf were +fierce, bigoted Moslems who would slay a Christian at sight. But he +put on a brave front and went to the Chief's house. There he sat down +with the men on the ground and began to eat with them from a great +iron pot a hot, slimy, greasy savoury, and then sipped coffee with +them. + +"Why have you come here?" they asked him. + +"My desire is," he replied, "to pass on to the Jowf." + +Now the Jowf is the largest town in the Syrian desert--the most +important in all Northern Arabia. From there camel caravans go north, +south, east, and west. Forder could see how his Arabic New Testaments +would be carried from that city to all the camel tracks of Arabia. + +"The Jowf is eleven days' camel ride away there," they said, pointing +to the south-east. + + +[Illustration: FORDER'S JOURNEY TO THE JOWF.] + +"Go back to Orman," said the Chief, whose name was Mohammed-el-Bady, +"it is at your peril that you go forward." + +He sent a servant to bring in the headman of his caravan. "This +_Nisraney_ wishes to go with the caravan to the Jowf," said the Chief. +"What do you think of it?" + +"If I took a Christian to the Jowf," replied the caravan leader, "I am +afraid Johar the Chief there would kill me for doing such a thing. I +cannot do it." + +"Yes," another said, turning to Forder, "if you ever want to see the +Jowf you must turn Moslem, as no Christian would be allowed to live +there many days." + +"Well," said the Chief, closing the discussion, "I will see more about +this to-morrow." + +As the men sat smoking round the fire Forder pulled a book out from +his pouch. They watched him curiously. + +"Can any of you read?" he asked. There were a number who could; so +Forder opened the book--which was an Arabic New Testament--at St. +John's Gospel, Chapter III. + +"Will you read?" he asked. + +So the Arab read in his own language this chapter. As we read the +chapter through ourselves it is interesting to wonder which of the +verses would be most easily understood by the Arabs. When the Arab who +was reading came to the words: + +"God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that +whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting +life," Forder talked to them telling what the words meant. They +listened very closely and asked many questions. It was all quite new +to them. + +"Will you give me the book?" asked the Arab who was reading. Forder +knew that he would only value it if he bought it, so he sold it to him +for some dates, and eight or nine men bought copies from him. + +Next day the Chief tried to get other passing Arabs to conduct Forder +to the Jowf, but none would take the risk. So at last he lent him two +of his own servants to lead him to Ithera--an oasis four hours' camel +ride across the desert. So away they went across the desert and in the +late afternoon saw the palms of Ithera. + +"We have brought you a Christian," shouted the servants as they led +Forder into a room full of men, and dumped his goods down on the +floor. "We stick him on to you; do what you can with him." + +"This is neither a Christian, nor a Jew, nor an infidel," shouted +one of the men, "but a pig." He did not know that Forder understood +Arabic. + +"Men," he replied boldly, "I am neither pig, infidel, nor Jew. I am a +Christian, one that worships God, the same God as you do." + +"If you are a Christian," exclaimed the old Chief, "go and sit among +the cattle!" So Forder went to the further end of the room and sat +between an old white mare and a camel. + +Soon a man came in, and walking over to Forder put his hand out and +shook his. He sat down by him and, talking very quietly so that the +others should not hear, said: "Who are you, and from where do you +come?" + +"From Jerusalem," said Forder. "I am a Christian preacher." + +"If you value your life," went on the stranger, "you will get out of +this as quickly as you can, or the men, who are a bad lot, will kill +you. I am a Druze[70] but I pretend to be a Moslem." + +"What sort of a man is the Chief of Ithera?" asked Forder. + +"Very kind," was the reply. So the friendly stranger went out. Forder +listened carefully to the talk. + +"Let us cut his throat while he is asleep," said one man. + +"No," said the Chief. "I will not have the blood of a Christian on my +house and town." + +"Let us poison his supper," said another. But the Chief would not +agree. + +"Drive him out into the desert to die of hunger and thirst," suggested +a third. "No," said the Chief, whose name was Khy-Khevan, "we will +leave him till the morning." + +Forder was then called to share supper with the others, and afterwards +the Chief led him out to the palm gardens, so that his evil influence +should not make the beasts ill; half an hour later, fearing he would +spoil the date-harvest by his presence, the Chief led him to a filthy +tent where an old man lay with a disease so horrible that they had +thrust him out of the village to die. + +The next day Forder found that later in the week the old Chief himself +was going to the Jowf. Ripping open the waistband of his trousers, +Forder took out four French Napoleons (gold coins worth 16s. each) and +went off to the Chief, whom he found alone in his guest room. + +Walking up to him Forder held out the money saying, "If you will let +me go to the Jowf with you, find me camel, water and food, I will give +you these four pieces." + +"Give them to me now," said Khy-Khevan, "and we will start after +to-morrow." + +"No," replied Forder, "you come outside, and before the men of the +place I will give them to you; they must be witnesses." So in the +presence of the men the bargain was made. + +In the morning the camels were got together--about a hundred and +twenty of them--with eighty men, some of whom came round Forder, and +patting their daggers and guns said, "These things are for using on +Christians. We shall leave your dead body in the sand if you do not +change your religion and be a follower of Mohammed." + +After these cheerful encouragements the caravan started at one +o'clock. For four hours they travelled. Then a shout went up--"Look +behind!" + +Looking round Forder saw a wild troop of Bedouin robbers galloping +after them as hard as they could ride. The camels were rushed together +in a group: the men of Ithera fired on the robbers and went after +them. After a short, sharp battle the robbers made off and the men +settled down where they were for the night, during which they had to +beat off another attack by the robbers. + +Forder said, "What brave fellows you are!" This praise pleased them +immensely, and they began to be friendly with him, and forgot that +they had meant to leave his dead body in the desert, though they still +told him he would be killed at the Jowf. For three days they travelled +on without finding any water, and even on the fourth day they only +found it by digging up the sand with their fingers till they had made +a hole over six feet deep where they found some. + +_In the Heart of the Desert_ + +At last Forder saw the great mass of the old castle, "no one knows +how old," that guards the Jowf[71] that great isolated city with its +thousands of lovely green date palms in the heart of the tremendous +ocean of desert. + +Men, women and children came pouring out to meet their friends: for a +desert city is like a port to which the wilderness is the ocean, and +the caravan of camels is the ship, and the friends go down as men do +to the harbour to meet friends from across the sea. + +"May Allah curse him!" they cried, scowling, when they heard that a +Christian stranger was in the caravan. "The enemy of Allah and the +prophet! Unclean! Infidel!" + +Johar, the great Chief of the Jowf, commanded that Forder should be +brought into his presence, and proceeded to question him: + +"Did you come over here alone?" + +"Yes," he answered. + +"Were you not afraid?" + +"No," he replied. + +"Have you no fear of anyone?" + +"Yes, I fear God and the devil." + +"Do you not fear me?" + +"No." + +"But I could cut your head off." + +"Yes," answered Forder, "I know you could. But you wouldn't treat a +guest thus." + +"You must become a follower of Mohammed," said Johar, "for we are +taught to kill Christians. Say to me, 'There is no God but God and +Mohammed is His prophet' and I will give you wives and camels and +a house and palms." Everybody sat listening for the answer. Forder +paused and prayed in silence for a few seconds, for he knew that on +his answer life or death would depend. + +"Chief Johar," said Forder, "if you were in the land of the +Christians, the guest of the monarch, and if the ruler asked you to +become a Christian and give up your religion would you do it?" + +"No," said Johar proudly, "not if the ruler had my head cut off." + +"Secondly," he said to Johar, "which do you think it best to do, to +please God or to please man?" + +"To please God," said the Chief. + +"Johar," said Forder, "I am just like you; I cannot change my +religion, not if you cut off two heads; and I must please God +by remaining a Christian.... I cannot do what you ask me. It is +impossible." Johar rose up and went out much displeased. + + +_"Kill the Christian!"_ + +One day soon after this there was fierce anger because the mud tower +in which Johar was sitting fell in, and Johar was covered with the +debris. "This is the Christian's doing," someone cried. "He looked +at the tower and bewitched it, so it has fallen." At once the cry was +raised, "Kill the Christian--kill him--kill him! The Christian! The +Christian!" + +An angry mob dashed toward Forder with clubs, daggers and revolvers. +He stood still awaiting them. They were within eighty yards when, to +his own amazement, three men came from behind him, and standing +in front of Forder between him and his assailants pulled out their +revolvers and shouted, "Not one of you come near this Christian!" +The murderous crowd halted. Forder slowly walked backwards toward his +room, his defenders doing the same, and the crowd melted away. + +He then turned to his three defenders and said, "What made you come to +defend me as you did?" + +"We have been to India," they answered, "and we have seen the +Christians there, and we know that they do no harm to any man. We have +also seen the effect of the rule of you English in that land and in +Egypt, and we will always help Christians when we can. We wish the +English would come here; Christians are better than Moslems." + + * * * * * + +Other adventures came to Forder in the Jowf, and he read the New +Testament with some of the men who bought the books from him to read. +At last Khy-Khevan, the Chief of Ithera, who had brought Forder to the +Jowf, said that he must go back, and Forder, who had now learned what +he wished about the Jowf, and had put the books of the Gospel into the +hands of the men, decided to return to his wife and boys in Jerusalem +to prepare to bring them over to live with him in that land of the +Arabs. So he said farewell to the Chief Johar, and rode away on a +camel with Khy-Khevan. Many things he suffered--from fever and hunger, +from heat and thirst, and vermin. But at last he reached Jerusalem +once more; and his little four-year-old boy clapped hands with joy +as he saw his father come back after those long months of peril and +hardship. + +Fifteen hundred miles he had ridden on horse and camel, or walked. Two +hundred and fifty Arabic Gospels and Psalms had been sold to people +who had never seen them before. Hundreds of men and women had heard +him tell them of the love of Jesus. And friends had been made among +Arabs all over those desert tracks, to whom he could go back again in +the days that were to come. The Arabs of the Syrian Desert all think +of Archibald Forder to-day as their friend and listen to him because +he has proved to them that he wishes them well. + + +------------------------------------------------------------------+ + | "SEEING THEN THAT WE ARE COMPASSED ABOUT WITH SO GREAT A | + | CLOUD OF WITNESSES, LET US LAY ASIDE EVERY WEIGHT AND THE | + | SIN WHICH DOTH SO EASILY BESET US, AND LET US RUN WITH PATIENCE | + | THE RACE THAT IS SET BEFORE US, LOOKING UNTO JESUS, THE AUTHOR | + | AND PERFECTER OF OUR FAITH, WHO FOR THE JOY THAT WAS SET BEFORE | + | HIM ENDURED THE CROSS, DESPISING THE SHAME." | + +------------------------------------------------------------------+ + +FOOTNOTES: + +[Footnote 69: That is _Nasarene_ (or _Christian_).] + +[Footnote 70: The Druzes are a separate nation and sect whose religion +is a kind of Islam mixed with relics of old Eastern faiths, _e.g._, +sun-worship.] + +[Footnote 71: The Jowf is a large oasis town with about 40,000 +inhabitants, about 250 miles from the edge of the desert. The water +supply is drawn up by camels from deep down in the earth.] + + + + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's The Book of Missionary Heroes, by Basil Mathews + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE BOOK OF MISSIONARY HEROES *** + +***** This file should be named 16657.txt or 16657.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/1/6/6/5/16657/ + +Produced by Janet Blenkinship and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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