e--for they dreaded
to touch a twin-mother--they obeyed. Janie lifted the living twin, and
all set forth by the light of a piece of fire-stick glowing at the
end. This went out, and they stumbled along in the dense darkness. At
last they stopped. They had lost themselves. The men laid down their
burden and went off to grope for a trail, and Ma and Janie were alone
in the eerie forest with the moaning form at their feet.

"Oh, Ma, they may not come back," cried Janie.

"Well, my lassie, we'll just bide where we are until morning."

A shining ghostly thing leapt about in the darkness. Janie's heart went
to her mouth. But it was only the men back with a torch made of palm
tassel and oil which they had got from a hut. They went on again.

When the Mission yard was reached the men were so tired that they fell
down and went to sleep at once. Ma, too, was tired, but her work was
not done. She got a hammer and nails and some sheets of iron and
knocked up a little lean-to, in which she put the woman and nursed her
back to consciousness, and fed and comforted her. Then, utterly worn
out, she just lay down where she was in her soiled and damp clothes, and
fell sound asleep.

The baby died next day, and the mother grew worse, and there was no
hope. She was sore in spirit as well as in body, and sorrowed for her
fate and the loss of her husband's love. Ma soothed her, and told her
she was going to a better world, where no one would be angry with her
for being a twin-mother.

When she passed away the people would not touch or come near her, and so
Ma did all that was needful herself, and placed her in a coffin, and
then the husband and his slave bore her away and buried her in a lonely
spot in the bush.

Poor twin-mothers of Africa!

Though Ma did not save very many of the twin-children that passed
through her hands, she did a great work by making the people realise how
foolish and sinful a thing it was to be afraid of them and kill them.

The household had grown and grown. We know about Janie and Mary, both
trickified and bright little maidens. Then there was Mana, a faithful
and affectionate lassie. One day, in her own country, she had gone to
the spring for water, and was seized by two men and brought to Okoyong
and sold to Eme Ete, who gave her to Ma. Wee Annie was there also, very
shy and timid, but a good nurse. Her parents had stolen and eaten a dog
in the bush, and there was much trouble, and the mother died, and An