rict, and we want a
very clever and strong person who will be able to rule the people and
see justice done."

"Well?" she asked again.

"Oh, Ma, don't you see what I'm driving at?"

"Fine that," she answered with a twinkle. "You want a very clever and
strong man to rule this people, and see justice done, a very worthy
aim."

"Quite so, and you are the man we want, Ma."

"Me? hoots, laddie, the tea must have gone to your head!"

"No, Ma, I'm serious. We officers can't do the work; we haven't the
language for one thing, and you know it better than the natives
themselves; also you know all their ways and tricks; they worship you;
you have great power over them; and what a chance to protect the women
and punish the men as you like! Think of the twins, Ma!"

"Ay," mused Ma, "it might help God's work. I don't like it, but I would
do it for His sake."

"Thank you, Ma. Your official title will be Vice-President of the Native
Court, but of course you will be the real President and do as you like.
The salary will be----"

"I'll take no salary," she snapped. "I'm not doing it for the
Government. I'm doing it for God."

By and by the letter from the Government came appointing her, and saying
that her salary would be given to the Mission to help on her work.

So Ma became again the only woman judge in the Empire. The Court was
held in a thatched building at Ikotobong. Ma sat at a small table, and
around her were the chiefs getting their first lessons in acting justly
and mercifully towards wrongdoers. Often she had to keep them in order.
They were very fond of talking, and if they did not hold their tongues
she just rose and boxed their ears.

She sat long days trying the cases, her only food a cup of tea and a
biscuit and a tin of sweets. She needed all her courage to get through,
for the stories of sin and cruelty and shame poured into her ears were
terrible for a white woman to hear. "We do not know how she does it,"
the other missionaries said. She could not have done it had it not been
that she wanted to save her black sisters and the little children from
the misery they suffered.

She was like no other judge in the world, because she had no books to
guide her in dealing with the cases, nothing but her knowledge of the
laws and customs of the people and her own good sense. She knew every
nook and cranny of the native mind, and although many lies are told in
African Courts, no one ever deceived her. They often t