"You bring three men," she commanded, "and three men will come from the other side, and we will have a palaver."
For hours she listened to their story; she coaxed them and commanded them and pleaded with them and laughed at them. In the end she conquered, and they made peace. Then she said a few simple words about her Saviour and went back over the dark, lonely forest path. The boat had gone, but messengers were waiting to take her down the river in a canoe.
It was not this time that Mary Slessor was afraid, but the time was coming nearer.
The afternoon was pleasant and at Duke Town, along the coast of Calabar, there was a stir which betokened some unusual event. The chief missionary, Mr. MacGregor, was moving about busily, now in the missionary buildings, now in his own house. The Governor General and the Commissioner sat on their porches looking out as though they were watching for something or somebody, or waiting for something to begin. When Europeans met, they stopped and said a joking word to one another.
It was more than thirty years since Mary Slessor had landed in Duke Town, and there were many changes. The government buildings were larger and finer, the mission buildings had increased in number and size, and there were many other improvements. England had begun to busy herself with the affairs of her colony, and the Church at home was listening to the desperate call from Calabar.
Presently a long line of boys appeared from the Boys' School and filed into the hall of the mission buildings. Then there came an equally long file from the Girls' School. At once the chief missionary and the other missionaries and the Governor General and the Commissioner went thither also, followed by the Europeans and the natives.
They took their assigned places on the platform and the benches and sat waiting. They watched the door even as the naughty boys and girls had looked up the street in Dundee, and as the Okoyong chiefs had looked out from between the branches.
"She's coming!" said a whisper. The whisper passed all along the benches. "She's coming! She's coming!"
A little figure advanced to the platform, hesitated, and moved on, assisted by firm and tender hands, and urged by laughing voices.