‘One of them, before he was rolled in the matting, asked permission to stand up and view once more the striking scene before him, as from that spot the country can be seen for some sixty miles in three directions—west, north-west, and south-west. His request was granted; he rose, feasted his eyes for a few moments on the familiar scene, and then bowed his head in prayer. He was then rolled in the mat and hurled over the precipice. As his body descended to the rocks below he was heard singing[14].’
Another, Rainiàsivòla, after being rolled over the edge of the downward-curving rock, was caught by the thorns which grow out of a fissure of the rock, some twenty feet below the edge. The officers who had rolled him over were in mortal terror, for it seemed as if their commission was not to be accomplished, and they might have to answer with their own lives for its failure. Lying there among the thorns on the edge of that precipice, the man must have looked up and seen their trepidation; for he shouted up to them: ‘Don’t be needlessly alarmed; I will wriggle myself clear and roll myself over!’ By violent exertion the thorns were snapped, he was freed, and fell upon the jagged rocks below, where he lay a mangled corpse. That man had been idol-keeper and diviner to Razàka-Ratrìmo, the father of Rànavàlona II, the first Christian Queen of Madagascar; but after his conversion he made firewood of the idol, and, as we have seen, died a martyr for his faith in Jesus Christ[15].
‘Ranìvo, an interesting and beautiful young woman of one of the first families, for she belonged to the tribe or clan from which the reigning family traced their descent; the queen herself, therefore, wished to save her. When questioned she said: “I cannot serve the idols: God alone will I serve, as long as my life shall last; for God alone has given me life and spirit—a higher spiritual life to worship Him; and for that reason I worship God.”
‘“You are wrong in your mind, or ill,” said the examining officer, “or you are under some charm; and you should consider well lest the queen hate you, and you should destroy yourself for no purpose.”
‘“I am not deranged,” she replied, “nor am I ill.” Then addressing her father, who was present, she said: “You indeed love me, O father, but God has given me a spirit to worship Him, and I should be filled with fear if I were to cease to pray to Him; therefore I shall not cease to worship Him, lest I should die everlasting death.”
‘“Bind her!” said the officer; and she was bound like the others.
‘The queen, anxious to save her, had with that view ordered her to be placed so that she might see her fellow Christians hurled from the fearful height, expecting that that would frighten her into submission. After they had all been hurled over, she was led by the executioner to the edge of the rock, and directed to look down upon the mangled bodies of her friends. She did so, but the sight did not lead her to waver in mind; for she still declined to take the required heathen oath necessary to save her life. “Dispatch me,” she said, “for my companions have already gone.” Her relatives entreated her to comply with the queen’s demand, and so save her life; but she said she could not take the oath, and she preferred to follow her martyred friends. They thought her insane, and reported to the queen to this effect, and hence her life was saved[16].’
A younger brother of Ranìvo was a great friend of mine for many years, and I got him to write a sketch of the life of his sister for our Malagasy monthly, Good Words.
‘The mangled and scarcely lifeless bodies of Ranìvo’s Christian companions, who had been hurled over the precipice, were dragged to the spot on the top of the Fàravòhitra hill, on which the four nobles had been burned, and there consumed in one vast pile. The lurid flames of this funeral pyre were intended to spread awe and terror among the inhabitants of the numerously peopled villages around from which they were visible[17].’
While Ràmitràha was in prison his mother visited him, and is said to have urged him to promise to pray to the idols sometimes, seeing that they were ‘nothings,’ and save his life; but he answered, ‘I will not, I cannot.’ I once asked Razàka, our native pastor at Fihàonana, and Ràmitràha’s successor, in conducting the midnight prayer-meetings at Fihàonana, if he thought Ràmitràha’s mother was a really good woman. He said she was one of the best Christian women he had ever known. ‘For,’ said he, ‘her life was a testimony to her faith. She used to visit the sick, read the Scriptures to them, pray with them, teach the children, and do everything you could think of a good woman doing. In fact she was instant, in season and out of season, in every good work.’ ‘Well, but,’ I said, ‘if she was really the good Christian woman you say she was, how do you explain her asking her son to promise to pray to the idols sometimes in order to save his life?’ He replied: ‘I cannot explain it, sir; but she must have half lost her senses through grief at the prospect of death to her first-born and much loved son; for I am quite sure that she was a truly good woman.’