The Book of Missionary Heroes Part 26

III. VALIANT IN FIGHT

Years pa.s.sed 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 G.o.d. 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 c.o.c.k-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 s.n.a.t.c.hed off her skirt and all the clothing she could spare and spread them over the gin. She seized the one gla.s.s 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.

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