“God helping me, I will do all that man can do,” answered Nanari. “And nothing shall tempt me to quit the post you have committed to my charge.”
My mother, feeling for our poor friend and for the young ones who might soon be deprived of his protection, sacrificing her own wishes, urged my father to go as he was requested. As there was no time to be lost if he would see his friend alive, bidding us a tender, and it seemed to me a peculiarly solemn farewell, he went on board the canoe, which immediately set sail on her return. We accompanied him to the beach, and watched the vessel till she was lost to sight in the distance.
On our return home we found my mother suffering greatly. The agitation of parting from my father had been more than she could bear. Oh, how I longed to recall him! Little could he have known her dangerous state. My father had a knowledge of medicine, and he might have applied remedies of which we were ignorant. Good Abela came up on hearing how ill my mother was, though she could afford us but little assistance. Suddenly, as I gazed at my mother, a fearful conviction came upon me that she was dying. She knew herself that such was the case. I cannot even now bear to dwell upon the sad scene, for sad indeed it was to us, though my mother’s heart was lifted up with joy and hope.
“God’s will be done, my children,” she said, taking Maud’s and my hand in hers. “He will care for and protect you though troubles arise which may seem overwhelming.”
Abela and Nanari assured her that they would devote themselves to our service, yet the absence of my father must have been a sore trial to her.
During that night she breathed her last, and I was left motherless; so, indeed, was dear Maud, to whom she had been truly a mother.
Then quickly followed the funeral. All the Christians of the settlement stood round the grave, in a beautiful spot which had been set apart for the purpose, at a short distance from the chapel, when Nanari offered up a prayer that God’s Holy Spirit would influence the hearts of all present, and enable them to possess the same hope of a joyous resurrection as that in which my mother died, he then addressed the people, urging them to put faith in God’s goodness and wisdom, and telling them that though troubles might come, not therefore to suppose that He had forgotten to be gracious, but to go on praying and trusting in Him, till He might think fit to call them out of this world, to be with Him in glory and happiness unspeakable.
Maud and I spent that sad evening with our hands clasped together, often weeping but seldom speaking. My heart bled for my poor father, as I thought of his grief and anguish, when, on his return he would find that my mother had been taken from him.
“Still,” said Maud, looking up in my face, “he will know that she is in joy surpassing human understanding, and we cannot tell from what trials and sufferings she may thus have escaped.”
With the last thought I was greatly comforted.