At length, after enduring innumerable difficulties and privations for seven months, they arrived at Linyanti, the residence of the chief Sekeletu. He refused to allow them to remove to a more healthy spot, but proposed that they should live with him in the midst of his fever-generating marshes, and as no better plan offered, they were compelled to accept it. In the course of a week all were laid low with fever. Little Henry Helmore and his sister, with the infant babe of Mr. Price, were the first to die; then followed the heart-stricken mother, Mrs. Helmore; six weeks later Mr. Helmore breathed his last; and the missionary band was reduced to Mr. and Mrs. Price and the helpless orphans. As the only means of saving their lives the survivors prepared to depart, but now the chief threw obstacles in the way of their doing so. Their goods were stolen, their waggon taken possession of; and upon Mr. Price telling the chief that “if they did not let him go soon they would have to bury him beside the others,” he was simply told “that he might as well die there as anywhere else.”
Finally a few things were allowed for the journey, and the sorrowful party started homeward, Mr. Price very ill, and his wife having lost the use of her feet and legs.
With the scantiest possible provision they had to face a journey of upwards of a thousand miles to Kuruman, but they set forward. Just as they were beginning to take hope after their heavy trials, and to think of renewed efforts for the Lord, Mrs. Price was called to her rest. “My dear wife,” wrote the sorrowing husband, “had been for a long time utterly helpless, but we all thought she was getting better. In the morning I found her breathing very hard. She went to sleep that night, alas! to wake no more. I spoke to her, and tried to wake her, but it was too late. I watched her all the morning. She became worse and worse, and a little after mid-day her spirit took its flight to God who gave it. I buried her the same evening under a tree—the only tree on the immense plain of Mahabe. This is indeed a heavy stroke, but ’God is my refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble.’”
Finally the bereaved missionary was met by Mr. and Mrs. Mackenzie, who had started to join the Makololo Mission, and, as all turned their steps towards Kuruman, they were rejoiced by meeting Robert Moffat, who, having heard of the disaster, and that Mr. Price, with the remnant of the party, were on the road, had gone out in search of them. All returned sorrowfully to Kuruman, and the ill-fated Makololo Mission collapsed.
Robert Moffat and his wife watched the progress of the Mission at Inyati with the keenest interest. In it they seemed to live their early life at Lattakoo over again. Their hearts were in the work of the missionaries at that distant station; and, over and above the earnest desire they had to see the work of God prosper among those uncivilised natives, was the tie of kinship, their own flesh and blood being present in the person of their son, John Moffat, who, with his wife, formed a portion of the Matabele Mission. Post-bags and supplies were forwarded by every available opportunity, and warm words of cheer and sympathy from the aged pair at Kuruman encouraged the workers in the far distant region to perseverance in their work for the Lord.