The Fugitives: The Tyrant Queen of Madagascar by R. M. Ballantyne (the giving tree read aloud .TXT) 📕

The vigour with which Prince Rakota put down the attempt at usurpation was followed by characteristic deeds of leniency and kindness. Instead of taking the usual method of savage and semi-civilised rulers to crush rebellion, he merely banished Rambosalàma from the capital, and confined him in a residence of his own in the country; but no fetters were put on his limbs, and his wealth was not forfeited, nor was he forbidden to communicate with his friends.

Moreover, before the sun of that day in 1861 had set, the new King caused it to be proclaimed far and wide that all his subjects might depend upon receiving equal protection; that every man was free to worship God according to the dictates of his own conscience; that the prison-doors should be thrown open to those who had been condemned for conscience sake, and their fetters knocked off. He also sent officers to announce to those who had been banished to the pestilential districts that the day of deliverance had come.

To many of these last, of course, the good news came too late for this life. Disease, and hard labour and cruel fetters, had done their work; but the deliverance that came to these was grander and more glorious than the mere removal of earthly chains and pains.

It was a glad day for Madagascar, and the people of the capital were wild with joy, for condemned ones who had long been given up as lost, because enslaved or imprisoned for life, were suddenly restored to family and friends, while others could entertain the hope that those who had been long banished would speedily return to them. Many a house in the city resounded that day with hymns of praise and thanksgiving that the tyrant Queen was dead, and that the gentle Prince was crowned.

But the change did not bring equal joy to all. Some there were whose smitten hearts could not recover from the crushing blows they had sustained when the news of loved ones having perished in exile had been brought to them—though even these felt an impulse of pleasure from Christian sympathy with the joy of their more fortunate friends.

Among these last was poor Reni-Mamba. She, being very meek and submissive, had tried hard to join in the prayer and praise; but her voice was choked when she attempted to speak, and it quavered sadly when she tried to sing.

“Oh! if it had only pleased God to spare thee, Mamba—thou crumb of my life!—my dear, my only son!” She broke out thus one day when the sympathetic Ra-Ruth sought to comfort her. “I was beginning to get over the loss of his father—it was so many years ago that they took him from me! and as my boy grew up, the likeness to my Andrianivo was so strong that I used to try to think it was himself; but—now—both—”

“Are with the Lord, which is far better,” said Ra-Ruth, tenderly laying her hand on Reni’s arm.

“You are young to give such comfort,” returned Reni, with a sad smile.

“It is not I who give it, but the Lord,” returned Ra-Ruth. “And you forget, mother, that I am old in experience. When I stood on the edge of the Rock of Hurling, that awful day, and saw the dear ones tossed over one by one, I think that many years passed over my head!”

“True—true,” returned the other, “I am a selfish old woman—forgetting others when I think so much of myself. Come—let us go to the meeting. You know that the congregation assembles to-day for the first time after many, many, years—so many!”

“Yes, mother, I know it. Indeed I came here partly to ask you to go with me. And they say that Totosy, the great preacher, is to speak to us.”

Many others besides these two wended their way to the meeting-house that day. Among them was a group in which the reader is perhaps interested. It consisted of Mark Breezy, John Hockins, Ebony Ginger, Samuel Ravoninohitriniony, Laihova, and Voalavo.

“Well now, this is the queerest go-to-meetin’ that I’ve had to do with since I was a babby,” remarked Hockins, as he looked from side to side upon the varied crowd of men and women, black, brown, and yellow, rich and poor, noble and slave, who were joyfully and noisily thronging to the house of God!

“Das true,—an’ look dar!” said Ebony, pointing to a young woman who was standing as if thunder-struck before a worn-out, feeble, white-haired man in tattered garments, with a heavy iron collar on his neck.

Recovering from her surprise, the young woman uttered the word “Father” with a wild shriek, and rushed into the old man’s arms.

“Easy to see that he is a banished one returned unexpectedly,” observed Mark, as the young woman, after the first wild embrace, seized the old man’s arm and hurried him towards the meeting-house, while tears of joy streamed from her eyes.

And this was not the only case they witnessed, for constantly, during the days that followed the accession of Radama the Second, exiles were hastening home,—men and women in rags, worn and wasted with want and suffering—reappearing in the city to the astonishment and joy of friends who had supposed them long since dead. Yes, the long-desired jubilee had come at last, and not only was there great rejoicing over those lost and found ones, but also over many who, through the power of sympathy, were brought at that time to the Saviour and repentance.

Referring to that period, one of those returned exiles writes thus:—

“On Thursday, 29th August 1861, we that were in concealment appeared. Then all the people were astonished when they saw us, that we were alive and not yet buried or eaten by the dogs. And there were a great many people desiring to see us, for they considered us as dead, and this is what astonished them. On the 9th of September, those that were in fetters came to Antananarivo, but they could not walk on account of the weight of the