Another prisoner who was inconsolable was poor Reni-Mamba. From the time that she was told of her son’s fate she seemed to sink into a state of quiet imbecility, from which no efforts of her friends could rouse her. She did not murmur or complain. She simply sat silent and callous to everything around her. She, Rafaravavy, Sarah, and the other females, were removed to another prison, and for a long time their male friends could learn nothing as to their fate.
“It is this prolonged uncertainty that’s so hard to bear,” remarked Ravonino to Mark one day, lifting his hands high above his head, and letting them fall, with the clanking chains, into his lap.
“True, true,” replied the youth, shortly—for confinement was beginning to tell unfavourably on himself.
“Das w’ere it is,” remarked Ebony, endeavouring to brighten up a little, but with only moderate success, “it’s sottin still an’ doin’ nuffin dat kills. What you tink, ’Ockins?”
“Ay, ay,” assented the seaman; and as for a long time nothing more than “ay, ay,” had been got out of Hockins, Ebony relapsed into silence.
Things had reached this lugubrious pass when an event occurred which materially affected the condition of the prisoners, and considerably altered the history of Madagascar.