The Book of Missionary Heroes Part 22

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 b.r.e.a.s.t.s 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. G.o.d 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 G.o.ds 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 G.o.ds 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'w.a.n.ga has eaten Uganda!" they shouted.

By this the people meant that M'w.a.n.ga, 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'w.a.n.ga'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'w.a.n.ga 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 Kak.u.mba, 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; s.n.a.t.c.hed 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'w.a.n.ga 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 Seruw.a.n.ga, Kak.u.mba, 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.

Seruw.a.n.ga, the bravest, refused to utter a cry as he was cut to pieces, but Kak.u.mba 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'w.a.n.ga 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'w.a.n.ga 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'w.a.n.ga.

A boy named Balikudembe, a Christian, heard the order and he could not contain himself, but broke out, "Oh, King M'w.a.n.ga, 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.