Chapter Seven.
Describes a Meek Mother and Crocodile-Son. Journey Resumed and Strange Treatment of the King of the Waters.
Dawn was still struggling to assert itself in the far east and the depths of the forest were still shrouded in almost midnight gloom, when the strange band of outlaws emerged from their cave, and, led by Ravonino, went forth to search for a safer dwelling-place in the still more inaccessible fastnesses of the wilderness.
They had not much difficulty in finding a suitable spot, for the particular region to which they had fled from persecution was exceedingly wild and broken in form, and abounded with concealed caverns having outlets in several directions, so that pursuit and discovery were alike difficult.
We may not delay here, however, to tell of their wanderings. Like the Christians of other lands and, more ancient times, they were hunted like wild beasts, though their only crime was a desire to serve and worship God according to the dictates of their consciences. It is the old familiar story, and comment is needless to those who understand it—
“Man’s inhumanity to man
Makes countless thousands mourn.”
There is only one other member of the party of whom we will make mention just now, because she appears again somewhat prominently in our tale. This was a little elderly female who seemed utterly destitute of the very common human attribute of self-assertion, and in whose amiable, almost comical, countenance, one expression seemed to overbear and obliterate all others, namely that of gushing good-will to man and beast! Those who did not know Réni-Mamba thought her an amiable imbecile. Those who knew her well loved her with peculiar tenderness. Her modesty and self-abnegation were not, so far as any one knew, the result of principle. She was too unassertive to lay claim to principle! We are not sure that she understood the meaning of principle.
Before Christianity in its doctrinal form reached her she had only one source of discomfort in life, and that was, that in everything she failed! Failed to do as much as she wanted to do for other people; failed to express herself always as affectionately as she felt; failed to avoid giving slight occasions of offence, although she “never, never meant to do it!” In short she was, strange to say, a victim to self-condemnation. When the Gospel of Jesus came to her, telling, as it does, that “God is Love,” that Christ came to sweep away for ever the very sins that troubled her, and that His Holy Spirit would fight for and in her, so as to make her “more than conqueror,” she caught it to her heart as the very thing she needed.