ry of the sick chief was again told.

"What is the matter with your chief?" asked Mary Slessor. Blank faces
and nodding heads showed that they knew nothing at all.

"I must go to him," she declared. She knew that the way was full of
perils, and that she might be killed by warriors and wild beasts; but
she knew too that, if she did not go and if the chief died, hundreds
of lives might be sacrificed.

Chief Edem said, "There are warriors out in the woods and you will be
killed. You must not go."

Ma Eme, a tall fat African widow of Ekenge village, who loved Mary
Slessor, said, "No, you must not go. The streams are deep; the rains
are come. You could never get there."

But Mary Slessor said, "I _must_ go."

"Then I will send women with you to look after you, and men to protect
you," said Chief Edem.

Mary Slessor went back to her house to prepare to start on her long
dangerous journey in the morning. She could not sleep for wondering
whether she was indeed right to risk her life and all her work on the
off-chance of saving this distant sick chief. She knelt down and asked
God to guide her. Then she felt in her heart that she must go.

In the morning at dawn a guard of Ekenge women came to her door.

"The men will join us outside the village," they said.

The skies were grey. The rain was falling as they started. When the
village lay behind them the rain began to pour in sheets. It came down
as only an African rain can, unceasing torrents of pitiless deluge.
Soon Mary Slessor's soaked boots became impossible to walk in. She
took them off and threw them into the bush; then her stockings went,
and she ploughed on in the mud in her bare feet.

They had walked for three hours when, as the weather began to clear,
Mary Slessor came out into a market-place for neighbouring villages.
The hundreds of Africans who were bartering in the market-place turned
and stared at the strange white woman who swiftly passed through their
midst and disappeared into the bush beyond.

So she pressed on for hour after hour, her head throbbing with fever,
her dauntless spirit driving her trembling, timid body onward till
at last, when she had been walking almost ceaselessly for over eight
hours, she tottered into the village of the sick chief.

_The Healing Hand._

Mary Slessor, aching from head to foot with fever and overwhelming
weariness, did not lie down even for a moment's rest, but walked
straight to the chief who lay senseles