(Where the town fetish or devil is consulted and propitiated.)
The king said: "This white man is our friend. He has come to do us good, and to give our picken (children) sense. He has nothing to do with the Government. He shall not die in my town."
Bravo, King of Bompeh! Thou hast more common-sense and right feeling beneath thy sable skin than some people would have supposed.
"I was surprised," said Mr. Goodman modestly, "to find how the influence of the Mission had spread."
At once his clothes were returned to him—all save his waistcoat, which was given to the leader of his captors; he was sheltered in a hut and allowed a measure of freedom—more freedom, indeed, than some of the natives who were prisoners. But, alas! he had escaped one great danger only to fall into another. The hardships he had undergone, and the malaria from which he had suffered, induced severe illness. Dysentery and black-water fever seized him; they shook him in their fell grasp until, from their power and poor food, he became so weak that he could scarcely stand.
His bed was a sort of raised platform of beaten mud, about six inches above the floor, with a mat upon it. Sometimes he slept in his clothes. But he became so sore from lying so long on such a hard resting-place that wounds were formed which troubled him for long afterwards. Such requisites as soap and towel were wholly wanting. The prospect, indeed, became very dark, and it seemed as though he had only escaped the savages to fall a victim to fever.
At first a boy waited on him, then an English-speaking Mendi; but unfortunately the king wanted this man, and his place was taken by another.
The news of Mr. Goodman's illness and imprisonment travelled abroad. It came to Tikonko, and his Mission boy Boyma sent him some quinine, which proved very beneficial. Then one day, though he knew it not, a friendly chief looked in upon him as he lay there so ill, and sent word to the English that one of their countrymen was a captive up there at Bompeh town, and Colonel Cunninghame promptly sent a demand that he should be given up alive. A great force, said the Colonel, was coming, with plenty of guns, to rescue him. Curiously enough, a native declared that he had dreamed the same thing; he had seen in his dream a great English army with "plenty guns" coming for the captive Englishman. Let him, therefore, be sent to his countrymen.
But another cause was working in his favour. While Mr. Goodman had been ill a battle had been fought, and the Mendis had been disastrously beaten by those terrible English with their "plenty guns." The "war-boys" were sick of the war. "Send the white man down," they also said to the king, "to plead that the fighting may cease."
So it was decided that he should be sent. He was given boys to assist him in his journey, and by their help he made his way, though he could scarcely walk, down to the English camp. He arrived there on June 26th, eight weeks from that fateful day when he had seen the strange men loitering so suspiciously about his Mission farm.