Mary Slessor was on her mettle.

“When you think of the woman’s power,” she said to the chief, “you forget the power of the woman’s God.  I shall go on.”

And to the amazement of the savages in the villages she went on into the darkness.  Surely she must be mad.  She defied their chief who had the power to kill her.  She had walked on into a forest where ferocious leopards abounded ready to spring out upon her, and where men were drinking themselves into a fury of war.  And for what?  To try with a woman’s tongue to stop the fiery chiefs and the savages of a distant warlike tribe from fighting.  Surely she was mad.

Facing the Warriors

She pressed on through the darkness.  Then she saw the dim outlines of huts.  Mary Slessor had reached the first town in the war area.  She found the hut where an old Calabar woman lived who knew the white Ma.

“Who is there?” came a whisper from within.

But even as she replied there was a swift patter of bare feet.  Out of the darkness leapt a score of armed warriors.  They were all round her.  From all parts dark shadows sprang forward till scores of men with their chiefs were jostling, chattering and threatening.

“What have you come for?” they asked.

“I have heard that you are going to war.  I have come to ask you not to fight,” she replied.

The chiefs hurriedly talked together, then they came to her and said—­

“The white Ma is welcome.  She shall hear all that we have to say before we fight.  All the same we shall fight.  For here you see are men wounded.  We must wipe out the disgrace that is put upon us.  Now she must rest.  Women, you take care of the white Ma.  We will call her at cock-crow when we start.”

This meant an hour’s sleep.  Mary Slessor lay down in a hut.  It seemed as though her eyes were hardly shut before she was wakened again.  She stood, tottering with tiredness, when she heard the cry—­

“Run, Ma, run!”

The warriors were off down the hill away to the fight.  She ran, but they were quickly out of sight on the way to the attack.  Was all her trouble in vain?  She pressed on weak and breathless, but determined.  She heard wild yells and the roll of the war drum.  The warriors she had followed were feverishly making ready to fight, a hundred yards distant from the enemy’s village.

She went up to them and spoke sternly.

“Behave like men,” she said, “not like fools.  Do not yell and shout.  Hold your peace.  I am going into the village there.”

She pointed to the enemy.  Then she walked forward.  Ahead of her stood the enemy in unbroken ranks of dark warriors.  They stood like a solid wall.  She hailed them as she walked forward.

There was an ominous silence.  She laughed.

“How perfect your manners are!” she exclaimed.  She was about to walk forward and force them to make way for her when an old chief stepped out toward her and, to her amazement, knelt down at her feet.