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—