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

It was a strange gathering, and there were many surprises in the church that day, and some strange music too, besides that of psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, for, during the service, several exiles who had just arrived, hearing what was going on, had hastened to the scene of reunion without waiting to have their fetters filed off, and entered the house in clanking chains.

The preacher’s duty was one of unusual difficulty, for, besides these peculiar interruptions and the exclamations of surprised friends, the sympathy of his own heart nearly choked his utterance more than once. But Totosy was equal to the occasion. His heart was on fire, his lips were eloquent, and the occasion was one of a thousand, never to be forgotten. Despite difficulties, he held his audience spell-bound while he discoursed of the “wonderful words of God” and the shower of blessing which had begun to fall.

Suddenly, during a momentary pause in the discourse, the clanking of a very heavy chain was heard, and a man was seen to make his way through the crowd. Like Saul, head and shoulders above his fellows, gaunt, worn, and ragged, he had been standing near the door, not listening, apparently, to the preacher, but intent on scanning the faces of the congregation. Discovering at length what he looked for, he forced his way to the side of Reni-mamba, sank at her feet, and with a profound sigh—almost a groan—laid his head upon her lap!

Mamba, grown to a giant, seemed to have come back to her. But it was not her son. It was Andrianivo, her long-lost husband! For one moment poor Reni seemed terrified and bewildered, then she suddenly grasped the man’s prematurely grey head in both hands and covered the face with passionate kisses, uttering every now and then a shriek by way of relieving her feelings.

Great though the preacher’s power was in overcoming the difficulties of his position, Reni-Mamba’s meek spirit, when thus roused, was too much for him. He was obliged to stop. At the same moment the gaunt giant arose, gathered up Reni in his great arms as if she had been a mere baby, and, without a word, stalked out of the meeting to the music of his clanking chains. A Malagasy cheer burst from the sympathetic people.

“Praise the Lord! Let us sing!” shouted the wise Totosy, and in a few seconds the congregation was letting off its surplus steam in tremendous and jubilant song, to the ineffable joy of Ebony, who must have burst out in some other way had not this safety-valve been provided.

But there were more surprises in store for that singular meeting. After the sermon the preacher announced that two marriages were about to be solemnised by him in the simplest manner possible. “My friends,” he said, “one of the bridegrooms is only half a Malagasy, the other half of him is English. He objects to ceremony, and his friend, the other man to be married, objects to everything that he objects to, and agrees to everything that he agrees to, which is a very satisfactory state of mind in a friend; so they are to be married together.”

Immediately after this speech Ravonino led forward Rafaravavy, and Laihova advanced with Ra-Ruth, and these two couples were then and there united in matrimony. Radama the Second, and Prince Ramonja, who had been recalled and reinstated with the Secretary, and Soa, and other courtiers, graced the wedding with their presence.

From this time, Radama the Second—or Rakota, as we still prefer to call him—began systematically to undo the mischief which his wicked mother had done. He began to build a college; he re-opened the schools throughout the country which had been closed in the previous reign, and acted on principles of civil and religions liberty and universal free trade, while the London Missionary Society—which had sent out the first Protestant Missionaries in 1818-20—were invited to resume their beneficent labours in the island—an invitation which, of course, they gladly accepted, and at once despatched the veteran Mr Ellis, and other missionaries, to the re-opened field. See Note 1.

But all this, and much more historical matter of great interest, we must leave untouched, in order that we may wind up the record of our heroes’ fortunes, or misfortunes; as the reader pleases to consider them.

The events which we have described occurred in such rapid succession that our trio—Mark, Hockins, and Ebony—had scarce found breathing-time to consider what they should do, now that they were free to do as they pleased.

“Go home, ob course,” said Ebony, when the question was mooted. “Ain’t my black darlin’ awaitin’ ob me dar?”

“I incline to the same course,” said Mark, “for my—well, I won’t say who, is awaiting me there also.”

“Unless she’s falled in lub wid some one else, tinkin’ you was dead, massa, you know,” suggested Ebony.

“Ditto, says I,” answered Hockins, when appealed to, “for, to the best o’ my belief, my old ooman is awaitin’ for me, too, over there—he pointed to England with the stem of his pipe—to say nothin’ o’ three thumpin’ boys an’ a gal—also an old gran’-mother an’ a maiden aunt, etceterer—all awaitin’ with great patience, I have no manner o’ doubt.”

“But how’s we to git dar? Das de question; as Hamblit said to his moder’s ghost.”

The question was answered sooner than they expected, for while they were yet speaking, a summons came from the King commanding the immediate attendance of the Court Physician. The object was to offer Mark his appointment permanently, but Mark respectfully, yet firmly, declined the honour.

“I feared that,” said the King, “for I doubt not that you has friends in your native home which draws you. Well, you wishes to go. I say, ‘Go with my good-will.’ There is Breetish ship loading at Tamatave now. If you and you’s friends mus’ go, there be your chance, and I will send you to Tamatave in palanquins. We all very sorry you go, for you was useful to us, and you was be kind—to my mother!”

Of course Mark gladly availed himself of the opportunity, thankfully accepted the king’s offer, and went off to inform his comrades and make preparation.

It was a sad occasion when they met in the house of their old guide Ravonino, to spend the last evening with him and Rafaravavy, and Laihova, and Ra-Ruth, Reni-Mamba and her husband, Voalavo, Soa, Totosy, the Secretary, and other friends, but it was also a time of pleasant communing about days that seemed so long past, although so recent. They also communed of days to come, and especially of that great day of reunion in the Better Land. And intensely earnest was the final prayer of the native pastor Totosy, as he commended his friends to the loving care of God.

Next day they set sail for the seaport town of Tamatave.

And here we might appropriately terminate our narrative, for the bright days that had begun to dawn on Madagascar have never since been darkened by persecution—though they have not been altogether cloudless or free from the curse of war; for, with its enormous capacities and important position, the island has long been a morsel coveted by some of what men style the “Great Powers.”

But we may not close our tale without at least touching on one dark spot, the contemplation of which cannot fail to grieve the heart of every sincere Christian. Rakota, the gentle, humane, courageous Prince, who had always favoured, and suffered hardship for, the cause of Christ, who had shielded and saved many of the Christians at the risk of his own life, and seemed to be—indeed was—a very pillar in the infant church, Rakota fell into gross sin and ultimately perished by the assassin’s hand.

We have no right to judge him. Only this we know, that “the blood of Jesus Christ cleanseth from all sin;” and if his life and death throw light upon any passage of Scripture, they seem to bring out in strong relief the words, “Let him that thinketh he standeth take heed lest he fall.”

It was a bright breezy morning when our three heroes stood on the deck of a homeward-bound vessel and gazed wistfully over the taffrail at the fast-receding shore. When the island sank like a little cloud into the horizon and disappeared, Mark and Ebony turned their eager eyes in the direction of old England, as if they half expected that celebrated isle of the west to appear! Possibly the one was thinking of a fair one with golden hair and blue eyes and a rosebud mouth. It is not improbable that the other was engaged in mental contemplation of a dark one with “a flat nose, and a coal-scuttle mout’, an’ such eyes!” As for Hockins, he stood with his sea-legs wide apart, his hands in his breeches pockets, and his eyes frowning severely at the deck. Evidently his thoughts, whether of past, present, or future, were too deep for utterance, for, like his comrades, he maintained unbroken silence.

Leaving them thus in pensive meditation, we regretfully bid them—and our readers—farewell!

Note 1. Those who wish for fuller information will find it in such works as Madagascar and its People, by James Sibree, Junior; Madagascar, its Missions and its Martyrs; The History of Madagascar, etcetera, by Reverend William Ellis; Madagascar of To-day, (a threepenny volume), by G.A. Shaw, FZS, etcetera.