How mirth doth into folly glide,
And folly into sin?”
Ndong Koni had joined in the frolic. In one particular dance they used firebrands which they waved before them. Next to Ndong Koni stood a man of giant size who thought he had a grudge against one of the family. When the excitement was at its height he suddenly threw fire in Ndong Koni’s face. Ndong Koni was only a boy of about nineteen years and not large; but quick as a flash he struck the fellow a blow in the face. The man, instantly drawing his sword, sprang at him; but Ndong Koni had already drawn his sword and was on his guard. In a minute, as it seemed, the men of the two towns separated and stood facing each other, a sword in every man’s hand. Then, thrusting and parrying, they circled around and drifted down the street towards the place where I was sitting. Before any serious wounds were inflicted, the chief, Mb’Obam, hearing the clash of swords, came from his house, and running between them at considerable risk to himself begged them not to fight, especially, he added, when the white man was visiting their town. He soon succeeded in quieting them.
Meantime I had been occupying a seat of honour, a real chair, or the venerable remains of one (probably the only chair in the town), infirm and unstable, and with one leg missing. Here I was maintaining a feeble existence against a fearful onslaught of mosquitoes. Another of my boat-boys, an old man of Liberia, named Benjamin, was near me when the quarrel occurred at the other end of the street. Benjamin did not understand the Fang language very well. He heard their angry voices and saw the flash of their swords as they were moving towards us. Hearing them also call out the name of the white man, Benjamin reached the extraordinary conclusion that they were going to kill me. Quite terrified, the old man rushed towards me with the cry, “O my master, my master!” and flung his arms around me, probably with the benevolent intention of dragging me off into the thicket, or hiding me in some hole; but the chair on which I was sitting, being a delicate piece of furniture and lacking a leg, as I have said, was overturned, and I went sprawling on the ground all mixed up with Benjamin, and wondering whether the man had gone mad. By the time I gathered myself up and got my parts together the quarrel in the street was quieted and Benjamin saw his mistake. No further misadventures occurred during the remainder of this pleasant evening.
Poor Benjamin! We shall not hear of him again, and we may dismiss him with a word. That was the last journey he made in the Evangeline. He was a capable, hard-working and kind-hearted old man, and we were all attached to him. But rum was his besetting sin and finally his ruin. After a long hard struggle against it he at last gave up the fight and became a helpless and hopeless victim. I had to dismiss him. When I left Africa he was in a native town near by, drinking himself to death; nor could he live long. But so great is the multitude hurrying down this same broad road to destruction that one more old man would never be noticed in the crowd.
Ndong Koni who figured in the fire-dance, was the one I have known most intimately of all Africans, and the one who made the strongest appeal to my affections. He was a handsome boy, as light in colour as a mulatto, of gentle manners and affectionate disposition. He came to me and engaged as a boat-boy shortly after I began work among the Fang. I taught him constantly. He served in many capacities varying from boat-boy to catechist.
Soon after Ndong Koni began to work for me, I visited a group of towns in the interior accompanied by him and several other natives. We walked nine miles by a good forest path and then travelled twelve hours by canoe. I recall that on that journey I was preaching in a certain town to a good-sized audience who were gathered in the palaver-house, when an old man, seated directly in front of me and beside an anvil upon which he had been hammering, became tired of my sermon and deliberately took up his heavy hammer and resumed his work, pounding the anvil with a deafening noise against which I could not proceed. The joke was plainly on me. Addressing a young man, I asked him if he would help me to carry the anvil outside, which we proceeded to do, before the old fellow realized what we were about, taking it to a safe distance, and leaving him sitting there with his work all around him. Thereupon I proceeded with “secondly,” and “thirdly.”
In returning, two days later, we started in the canoe at five o’clock in the morning and the boys paddled until seven at night, when we again took the forest path. We had expected upon leaving the canoe to stay all night in a native town at that place; but sure symptoms of approaching fever warned me that I had best get home as soon as possible, which necessitated a walk of nine miles by night through the forest. The road was somewhat open, however, and the path well cleared, so that the journey was quite possible. The men were worn out after their long day’s work. When I told them that I wished to go home that night their first exclamations of surprise were followed by profound silence. I said: “I know you are tired and it is not necessary that you should go on with me; but I ought to have one boy, for I am not sure of the road.”
Before I had finished, Ndong Koni, although the youngest of the party, had my food-chest on his head, and starting off said: “Mr. Milligan, I too, I go with you.”
In all my journeying in the Evangeline Ndong Koni was with me. He was my best helper in the religious services in the towns. He was boat-boy and preacher and often cooked my meals besides, for he was always willing to be called upon for extra service. Upon reaching a town he would take the organ on his head and carry it into the town, where he would find the best place to hold a service, and he and I would go through the town and call the people. After singing a few hymns, in which all the boat-boys joined, I would speak to the people a while and then ask Ndong Koni to speak. I have learned my best lessons from him. Not only was he fluent in speech, but with lively intelligence and unfailing sympathy he adapted his subjects and his words perfectly to his hearers. A more kind-hearted boy I have seldom known in any land, although cruelty was the most prominent characteristic of the heathen around him, of whom were his own people. The only reason I can give for this contrast is simply that Ndong Koni was a Christian.