"I have heard. I understand that the Mother is determined in her way. What can I do but submit."
Instead of death the sequel was a feast, a goat was killed, drink procured, and dancing was indulged in all night. Next day the young man went home to his aged mother.
One day when she was baking, a man and his wife, slaves of a chief in the neighbourhood, came to the door of the Mission House, and after giving compliments squatted down with the air of people who had come to stay.
"Well, what is the matter?" she asked. She knew the woman had a child, which could not have been left at home.
A long tale was told. The woman had been in the field all morning hoeing grass: as the sun rose she and her child grew hungry and she went home to cook some food. As she was doing so her master, who was not a favourite either with bond or free, unexpectedly appeared, and angrily ordered her back to her work. She protested that she needed food, but, brandishing a sword, he frightened her into flight. Her husband, a palm-oil worker, heard the noise, and came on the scene, stopped her, and told her to return and take the food. "What does it matter?" he remarked, "we are his; he can kill us if he likes; we have nothing to live for." The master, enraged, seized a gun and fired at the man, but missed. Taking hold of the screaming child he declared he would kill it and went off.
It was a simple case, but required delicate handling. She sent one of her girls to the chief with the message that his slaves were in her yard, and that as they were householders and elderly people and parents, she hoped there would be no palaver, and that he would take them back.
The runaways slept in the yard and held something of the nature of a reception, the other slaves coming and condoling with them as the poor do with each other all the world over. It was like a scene from _Uncle Tom's Cabin_. One moment the company would encourage them cheerily, urging them to have patience, then came a string of doleful tales, then a gush of warm sympathy, and next a burst of laughter, followed by a shower of tears.
Next day their master did not appear, and they went to work on the station grounds. The woman was fretting for her child, and Mana, one of the girls, was sent with another message, to the effect that if he could not come himself he must, for the woman's sake, send on the babe. The messenger brought back the news that he was on his way, but was tipsy, and breathing out dire threats against everybody. When Mary heard that three of his wives were with him, and that her own chief had joined the party, her mind was at ease.