On that day, I cannot forget it, a big bully of a sentry, armed with a gun and chicotte, came into Ekaka to see about sending the rubber men off to the bush. As he passed my father’s place he began to grumble to the old man about many things—he did not provide a sufficient number of rubber workers; he did not give enough honour to the sentries placed in his village; one of the rubber men had died, fallen from the vine he was cutting high up in the top of a tree, and been picked up dead, and my father [[90]]had not brought any one forward to take his place on the white man’s list.
This sentry proceeded to seize a little boy of about twelve years of age, a nephew of the deceased man, and ordered him to get rubber. My father ventured to plead for him, representing that he was too young, and not strong enough for the work.
He was answered by curses, insults were heaped upon him, then the bully took his own knife from him and actually cut off his long beard, of which he and all his family were so proud; and finally he struck the old man on the chest with the butt-end of his gun, felling him to the ground.
I had kept quietly in the hut, but this was too much. I sprang up and rushed to my father’s aid, and that was my undoing. The sentry took his revenge for my interference by informing the white man that I was sitting down at home doing nothing, and ought I not to be sent out to work rubber?
The white man called me, and gave me a book for rubber. In vain I told him that I was only resting in town for a little while, and intended to return to my work for the white men of God; my name was put on the list, and [[91]]once more I was obliged to seek for rubber. The conditions were much the same as before, but we were obliged to go further away than ever to find the rubber vines, as they were getting so scarce.
After some months of this work, which we all hate, I heard the news that my white man had returned to our country.
“Now,” thought I, “all will be well. I will go and plead with him, and beg him to redeem me from this slavery, and then I will work for him again.”
So when I took my next lot of rubber in to the white man, after receiving my three spoonfuls of salt in return for my basket of rubber balls, I went on to see the other white men.
It was true, the white man for whom I had worked had arrived while we were in the forest, and was just settled down to work again. When he and his wife saw me they gave me a hearty welcome, evidently thinking that I, like so many others, had just called to welcome them back to our land. He knew nothing of what had taken place in his absence.
I told him all my story, everything that had happened to me and mine while he was in [[92]]Europe; and asked him, now that he had returned, to redeem me from my slavery, and let me come back and work for him again.