The next day Essere went to get the water at the same place. She called for a long time, but her mother did not come out, as she saw a man making tombo in a tree near at hand. At last, however, as she did not like to hear her little daughter crying, Ewa Abagi came out very quickly, helped Essere with the water pot on to her head, and went back again into the river.
The man, who had been watching, saw Ewa Abagi and recognized her. He therefore came down from the tree and went at once to the chief and told him what he had seen.
The chief then told all the young men of the town to go early the next morning to the place where Ewa Abagi had been seen and to try and get her out of the river. He promised them that, if they succeeded in bringing the woman to him, he would hold a big play and “dash” them plenty of tombo and food.
The chief told Essere that, when she went in the morning to get the water, if she wanted to get her mother back, directly she had got the water out of the river she must take the pot back some little distance into the bush.
When the morning came, the little girl went off with her pot, as before, and having filled it with water, carried it back into the bush some little way from the river, and then sat down, and called for her mother to come and help her.
The young men, who had gone to the place before it was light, and who had lined both banks of the Abum river, by the chief’s orders, were all hidden out of sight, and, when Ewa Abagi came out of the water, they immediately surrounded her and caught her before she could get back to the river. They then carried her back to the chief.
The slave woman was then seized, and tied up to a tree, and, when the morning came, the chief charged her with trying to kill her mistress. She was found guilty, and was ordered to be killed as a sacrifice to the water ju-ju.
Mossim was then handed over to the young men who had rescued Ewa Abagi, and they took her to the place where she had pushed her mistress into the river, and, having cut her head off, threw the head and body into the river. This is one of the reasons why slaves are always killed and put into the grave of their master or mistress when they die, as a warning to other slaves not to try to kill their owners.
Author’s note.
There is a firm belief amongst all the natives in the Ikom district that the slaves who are killed and buried with their master will meet him again in the Spirit Land, where the conditions of life will be the same as they were on earth. The master will recognise his slaves and they will work for him. They also believe that, when a chief arrives in the Spirit Land, accompanied by these slaves, carrying the gin cloth, rods, etc., which were placed in the grave, the people of the Spirit Land-will say, “This is a chief coming. Look at his slaves, etc.”