“If hammock-boy no come you go on. I no stop.”
And they went, very slowly and reluctantly, but they went. It seemed cruel, but I soon grasped the fact that if I once allowed them to wait for the relief men who lingered there always would be lingerers, and we should crawl to Accra at the rate of five miles a day.
They sang songs as they went, and this my first day out the song took a most personal turn.
“If man no get chop,” they intoned in monotonous recitative, “he go die. Missus frow away our chop——-”
The deduction was obvious and I answered it at once. “All right, you go die. I no care. If men no come to work they may die.”
But they went very badly indeed, and it was after two o'clock in the afternoon before we arrived at Kommenda on the seashore, where there is a village and a couple of old forts falling into decay. Here, inside the courtyard of one of them, which is Ju-ju, I had my table and chair put out and my luncheon served. The feeling of triumph was still upon me. Already I was nearer Elmina than Sekondi and I felt in all probability, bad as they were, the men would go on. But, before I had finished my luncheon, my serenity received another shock. Of course no one dared disturb so terrible a person at her chop, but, after I had finished, while I was endeavouring to instruct Zacco in the way in which a kettle might be induced to boil without letting all the smoke go down the spout—I wanted some coffee—Grant came up with a perturbed countenance and said the headman wanted to speak to me. I sent for him.
“Missus,” he began propitiatingly, “man be tired too much. You stop here to-night; we take you Cape Coast to-morrow.”
