“Hear me further, my sons, for much good may yet be done, in spite of Zero and of the Arabs, who accomplish a world of evil, if someone of the great white nations of the world will but come forward and use its God-given strength for the purpose of putting down the slave-trade, suppressing entirely the sale of gin and rum in Africa, and supporting the missionaries. Africa! The whole country is being depopulated, and every acre of it watered with the tears of a people torn from their happy homes and sold into slavery in distant lands, or sent across the seas, and soon this vast and fertile region, as yet almost unknown to the white races, will become in all directions an impenetrable and useless jungle, through which even the mammoth elephant must fail to force his way—a dark continent in very deed and truth, an eyesore to both God and man.
“In the earlier days of my sojourn in this place, my sons, I looked to free and happy England to do all that this rich and fruitful land required to make it perfect; and I taught the natives, under God, to reverence and to pray for the Great White Queen, their mother, in whose all-powerful name I came to them in Freedom’s cause. Alas! my sons, the first slaver who entered here and broke up their quiet homes was this shameless scoundrel Zero; and, speaking with the same tongue as my own, naught of difference could this people see between his land and mine; and then worse, far worse, when the horrible slave traffic attracted hither the native dealers from the farther west, these brought with them word that slaves could be freely sold under French and German, and—oh! the shame of it—under British rule, ay, under Freedom’s own flag on the utmost coast of Western Equatorial Africa.
“My sons, I credited it not, and I sent my trusted runner a journey of many, many weary moons, and he brought me back a faithful word—alas! that it should have been a true one.
“‘The thing is even so, my father,’ he said. ‘Almost within the very cities of the Great White Queen, where the moving water beats, ever murmuring, upon the yellow sands, and within hearing of the guns of British forts, I saw very many slaves; and these were sold from house to house, or from land to land, as their owners in the towns desired. Also, day by day I watched great caravans of slaves from the peoples of many, many powerful kingdoms, bringing in native produce and dust of gold, and carrying out very many cases of square face and of rum.’
“‘It is a false report that ye bring,’ I said; ‘how know ye that the men were slaves? the Great White Queen frees all who come beneath the shadow of her glorious flag.’
“‘That may be,’ he said, ‘as I saw not the Great White Queen herself, but the slaves were there, all marked with a brand on the cheek, my father. Also, I had speech of some of these, and they said that they were slaves. More, my father, there are also in the cities many native guards, and most of these men are also slaves, who serve under the Queen’s ruler for money, which they give to the owners of their bodies whenever the Queen pays them; and so, my father, I would even live here under your shadow, where I and my people are free by the strength of our own right hands, than be a pining slave under the flag of the Great White Queen, my mother, who is too far away to help her suffering children when they cry out of wrong and find none to hear them.’
“Then it was, my sons,” said the aged man, “that I lost my reason; I could not eat my food, and my sleep at nights went from me; I could only kneel and humbly pray, both night and day, to the good God on high that lie would wake the ear of our gracious Queen to hear the pitiful cry of these poor defenceless creatures, over whom he has given her an empire, and power, and glory, and who, though they are so far from her, are yet her loyal subjects, and very near to the great God Himself, in whose hand her breath is, and whose are all her ways.
“And now, my sons, my eyes are closing fast, and I leave ye to follow me along the weary road which leads to the great hereafter. Take, then, the last blessing of a very aged and a defenceless man, to whom ye were both kind and good. Fear God, and follow that which is good, so shall we meet again in the land where sorrows are forgotten, and where peace and rest await both you and me. Greeting, then, my sons, to you and yours—greeting and farewell!”
And so he died, this one staunch witness for freedom and his God, in a land where all else was foul and evil. Very peacefully his life slipped from him with the dawn of day, and his loyal spirit soared to the very presence of Him who gave it life.
“God rest him,” said Grenville gently; “God rest His faithful servant. May I too die the death of a brave man, and may my last end be even as the end of Muzi Zimba the Ancient.”